Interference detection in mobile telecommunications networks

Apparatus for identifying interference in a cellular telecommunications network including a plurality of cells, each of which serves a plurality of mobile devices by radio link by using communication resources allocated to each of the mobile devices, the network having a frequency band allocated thereto, the apparatus including:

• means operable to detect radio quality within the frequency band at at least one of the cells to produce measurement values, wherein the communication resources comprise respective frequency domain subcarriers, wherein the radio quality includes at least uplink received power, the uplink received power being detected for respective periods to produce ones of the measurement values for each of the subcarriers in each of the periods;
• and
• means operable to analyze selected ones of the measurement values to determine if the selected measurement values indicate the presence of interference, wherein the selected measurement values exclude uplink subcarriers allocated to each of the mobile devices served by the cell during the period for which the measurement values were taken and exclude subcarriers subject to high interference indication information from neighbor cells, wherein each cell excludes a detected power value that is from the subcarriers.