Soft Cell Inter-Layer Interference Handling

Abstract

In a heterogeneous cell deployment a mobile terminal may need to receive control data transmissions from a macro node at the same time as a pico node is transmitting user data for the mobile terminal, using the same frequency or set of frequencies. This can result in a problematic interference situation. According to several embodiments of the present invention, at least one of two general approaches is used to mitigate the interference situation described above. In a first approach, the pico node's transmission power is reduced in some time intervals, thereby reducing the interference to a level where reception from the macro node is possible. In a second approach, which may be combined with the first approach in some cases, the data transmitted from the macro node is provided by the pico node, either alone or in combination with the macro node.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.