Cooperative radio resource scheduling in a wireless communication network and methods for use therewith

A centralized baseband unit comprises:

• a network interface configured to communicate backhaul communications with one or more network elements of a communication network;
• a radio interface configured to communicate fronthaul communications with a plurality of radio units;
• a baseband processor and a memory, wherein the memory stores operational instructions that, when executed by the baseband processor, cause the baseband processor to perform operations that include:
• converting, in accordance with a communication standard, received fronthaul communications from the plurality of radio units into backhaul communications transmitted to the communications network;
• converting, in accordance with the communication standard, received backhaul communications from the communications network into fronthaul communications transmitted to the plurality of radio units, wherein the plurality of radio units are configured to engage in wireless communications with a plurality of user equipment (UEs) via a radio channel of a radio network;
• providing a shared scheduler associated with a radio channel that is partitioned into a plurality of physical radio blocks (PRBs), wherein the plurality of PRBs are accessible by the plurality of UEs via the plurality radio units (RUs);
• and
• obtaining channel state information (CSI) corresponding to each of the plurality of PRBs in combinations with ones of the plurality of UEs with ones of the plurality of RUs;
• generating, via the shared scheduler, an UE to PRB to RU allocation that associates ones of the plurality of PRBs to selected ones of the plurality of UEs and selected ones of the plurality of RUs, without a UE to RU pre-allocation, wherein the fronthaul communications control wireless communications between the plurality of UEs and the plurality of RUs, via the UE to PRB to RU allocation, and wherein the shared scheduler generates the UE to PRB to RU allocation based on the CSI corresponding to each of the plurality of PRBs in combinations with ones of the plurality of UEs with ones of the plurality of RUs.