Inter-cell coordination in cellular deployment

A base station serving a user equipment, UE, via a serving cell and a plurality of neighboring cells, the base station comprising:

• a communication interface configured to receive a UE signal quality measurement report;
• a memory configured to store:
• a combined metric computed at the base station;
• a UE signal quality measurement report from the UE and transmitted to the base station;
• and
• a serving cell threshold;
• and
• computational circuitry in operative communication with the memory and the communication interface, the computational circuitry configured to:
• calculate a signal to interference ratio, SIR, experienced by the UE based on received uplink signal quality measurements at the serving cell and the neighboring cells;
• calculate a UE signal quality metric based on the UE signal quality measurement report;
• calculate the combined metric based on the estimated SIR, the UE signal quality metric and a scaling parameter;
• and
• compare the combined metric to the serving cell threshold to determine whether to implement an inter-cell coordination procedure.

A base station, comprising:

• a communication interface configured to receive a user equipment, UE, signal quality measurement report;
• a processor configured to execute software instructions;
• a memory in communication with the processor, the memory configured to store:
• a combined metric;
• the UE signal quality measurement report received from the UE by the communication interface;
• a serving cell threshold;
• and
• a plurality of software modules, including:
• a signal to interference, SIR, estimator module having instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to estimate a signal to interference ratio, SIR, experienced by a user equipment, UE, based on received uplink signal strength measurements;
• a metric calculator module having instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to calculate the combined metric based on the estimated SIR, a UE signal quality metric determined from the UE signal quality measurement report and a scaling parameter;
• and
• a metric comparator module having instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to compare the combined metric to the serving cell threshold to determine whether to implement an inter-cell coordination procedure.