Base station for multi-carrier TDMA mobile communication system and method for assigning communication channels

A base station for a multi-carrier TDMA radio communication system which uses multiple carrier frequencies each having time-division multiplex time slots, said base station comprising:

• a first management table for registering therein at least one candidate channel for single-channel communication selected from among a plurality of free traffic channels each defined in terms of the carrier frequency and time slot number;
• a second management table for registering therein at least one group of candidate channels for multi-channel communication selected from among said free traffic channels, said candidate channel group comprising a plurality of candidate traffic channels classified into a predetermined number of sub-groups corresponding to the type of multi-channel communication, each of said sub-groups including candidate traffic channels having a predetermined mutual relation with respect to at least one of the carrier frequency and time slot;
• and
• a channel assigning unit which, in response to the reception of a channel assignment request from a mobile station, retrieves at least one traffic channel to be assigned to said mobile station by making reference to one of said first and second management tables depending on the type of said requesting mobile station, wherein said channel assigning unit retrieves traffic channels to be assigned to a mobile station of multi-channel type from one of said sub-groups by making reference to said second management table memory according to the type of multi-channel communication specified by the channel assignment request.

A method of traffic channel assignment for a multi-carrier TDMA radio communication system which conducts communication between a base station and a mobile station by using selectively at least one of carrier frequencies and at least one of multiple time slots which are time-division multiplexed with each of the carrier frequencies, said method comprising the steps of:

• registering in a first management table at least one candidate channel for single-channel communication selected from among free traffic channels each defined in terms of the carrier frequency and time slot number;
• registering in a second management table at least one group of candidate channels for multi-channel communication selected from among said traffic channels, said candidate channel group comprising a plurality of candidate traffic channels classified into a predetermined number of sub-groups corresponding to the type of multi-channel communication, each of said sub-groups including candidate traffic channels having a predetermined mutual relation with respect to at least one of the carrier frequency and time slot;
• and
• assigning, in response to the reception of a channel assignment request from a mobile station, at least one traffic channel to said mobile station by making reference to one of said first and second management tables depending on the type of said requesting mobile station.