Radio access networks in which mobile devices can be scheduled to use the same time-frequency resource

A communication system comprising:

• remote units to exchange radio frequency (RF) signals with mobile devices, at least one of the RF signals comprising information destined for, or originating from, a mobile device of the mobile devices, and wherein the remote units comprise radio frequency transceivers to communicate with the mobile devices;
• and
• a controller comprising a real-time scheduler for assigning the mobile devices to time-frequency resources;
• wherein the controller is configured to determine remote unit transmission or reception needs of the mobile devices by estimating signal levels from the mobile devices and representing the remote unit transmission or reception needs of the mobile devices with numerical values;
• wherein the real-time scheduler assigns the time-frequency resources to the mobile devices based on the numerical values, assigning a same time-frequency resource to two or more mobile devices based on RF isolation between the two or more mobile devices, the RF isolation determined using numerical values for a respective signal received from each of the two or more mobile devices at each of the remote units.