Selective discontinuation of carrier aggregation service to facilitate service of other device

A base station comprising:

• an antenna structure for communicating over an air interface with a first user equipment device (UE) and with a plurality of second UEs;
• and
• a controller configured to carry out operations comprising:
• while the base station serves the first UE without carrier aggregation and serves the plurality of second UEs with carrier aggregation, detecting a trigger event for starting to serve the first UE with carrier aggregation;
• and
• responsive to detecting the trigger event, (i) selecting one of the second UEs to transition from being served by the base station with carrier aggregation to being served by the base station without carrier aggregation, wherein the controller selects the one of the second UEs based at least in part on a modulation and coding scheme (MCS) that the base station uses to serve the selected one of the second UEs, (ii) transitioning from serving the selected one of the second UEs with carrier aggregation to serving the selected one of the second UEs without carrier aggregation, and (iii) transitioning from serving the first UE without carrier aggregation to serving the first UE with carrier aggregation.

A method of controlling service by a base station, the method comprising:

• while the base station is serving both a first user equipment device (UE) without carrier aggregation and a plurality of second UEs with carrier aggregation and a quantity of the plurality of second UEs is at least a threshold quantity, the base station detecting a trigger event for starting to serve the first UE with carrier aggregation;
• based on the quantity of the plurality of second UEs being at least the threshold quantity and responsive to the base station detecting the trigger event for starting to serve the first UE with carrier aggregation, the base station selecting one of the second UEs to transition from being served by the base station with carrier aggregation to being served by the base station without carrier aggregation, wherein the base station selects the one of the second UEs based at least in part on a modulation and coding scheme (MCS) that the base station uses to serve the selected one of the second UEs;
• the base station transitioning from serving the selected one of the second UEs with carrier aggregation to serving the selected one of the second UEs without carrier aggregation;
• and
• responsive to the base station transitioning from serving the selected one of the second UEs with carrier aggregation to serving the selected one of the second UEs without carrier aggregation, the base station transitioning from serving the first UE without carrier aggregation to serving the first UE with carrier aggregation.