Selecting Transmission Technology for Communications in Wide Area Mobile Networks

Method for selecting a transmission technology for communications in a wide area mobile network which provides at least one available radio carrier for allocating traffic of coexisting MIMO User Equipments, HSDPA User Equipments and non-HSDPA User Equipments, characterized by comprising:

• checking whether the User Equipment is a MIMO User Equipment;
• if the User Equipment is a MIMO User Equipment and one single radio carrier is available, allocating the traffic of the User Equipment to the single radio carrier and selecting a S-CPICH to provide all MIMO traffic with a diversity pilot and Virtual Antenna Mapping for transmit diversity;
• if the User Equipment is a MIMO User Equipment and a plurality of radio carriers is available, allocating the traffic of the User Equipment to one radio carrier to which all existing MIMO traffic are already allocated and
• performing periodically the steps of checking the number of User Equipments coexisting in the network, measuring radio condition parameters of the User Equipment and measuring an average transmission power load of each radio carrier, and
• if said one radio carrier is occupied only by MIMO traffic and the average transmission power load of said one radio carrier is higher than a specific threshold and higher than the average transmission power load of the remaining radio carriers free of MIMO traffic, selecting a diversity CPICH which uses STTD to provide all existing MIMO traffic with a diversity pilot;
• if the average transmission power load of said one radio carrier is lower or equal than the average transmission power load of the remaining radio carriers free of MIMO traffic and the number of User Equipments with radio condition measurements higher than a quality threshold and with a standardized category of HSDPA User Equipment identified by the operator as being vulnerable to STTD exceeds a certain number, selecting a S-CPICH to provide all MIMO traffic with a diversity pilot and Virtual Antenna Mapping for transmit diversity;
• otherwise, selecting a diversity CPICH which uses STTD to provide all existing MIMO traffic with a diversity pilot and
• if a plurality of radio carriers is available, further comprising:
• using STTD on only one radio carrier, allocating all existing MIMO traffic to said one radio carrier and allocating all existing non MIMO traffic to another radio carrier not using STTD.