Method and A System for Down Link Control in a Cellular Telephony System

A method for controlling the flow of traffic in a cellular telephony system including one or more cells, each cell including at least one Radio Base Station (RBS) to control the traffic to and from user equipment (UE) in the cell, wherein the traffic to each UE comprises at least one traffic flow, the method comprising:

• executing a control function for each controlled flow of traffic to each UE, wherein the control function comprises a congestion avoidance function operative to
• detect a presence or an absence of congestion in a traffic flow to a UE;
• non-linearly reduce a bit rate of the traffic to the congested UE responsive to detecting either congestion or low utilization of the cellular telephony system;
• linearly increase the bit rate of the traffic to the previously congested UE responsive to detecting the absence of congestion;
• and
• minimize a time between successive bit rate decreases using a down prohibit function included in the congestion avoidance control function.

A Radio Base Station (RBS) for controlling traffic flow to and from user equipment (UE) in a cell of a cellular telephony system, wherein the traffic from the system to each UE comprises at least one traffic flow, and wherein the RBS includes a control function to control the one or more traffic flows to one or more UEs, the RBS comprising:

• a flow control function associated with each controlled traffic flow to each of the UEs, the flow control function comprising a congestion avoidance control function configured to:
• detect a presence or an absence of congestion in a traffic flow to a UE;
• non-linearly reduce a bit rate of the traffic flow to a UE responsive to detecting the presence of congestion or low utilization of the cellular telephone system;
• linearly increase the bit rate of the traffic flow to a previously congested UE responsive to detecting the absence of congestion;
• and
• wherein the congestion avoidance function includes a down prohibit function that guarantees a minimum time between bit rate decreases.