Load sharing in a cellular radio communication system

A computer program product stored in a non-transitory computer readable medium for facilitating load sharing between a serving cell and a neighboring cell of a cellular radio communication system, the serving cell serving a plurality of radio devices, the computer program product comprising software instructions which, when run on processing circuitry of a network node of the cellular radio communication system, causes the network node to:

• define a first group of radio devices, wherein the first group is a subgroup of the plurality of radio devices served by the serving cell;
• associate the first group of radio devices with a load sharing boundary to a load sharing zone between the serving cell and the neighboring cell, beyond which load sharing boundary any of the radio devices in the first group is regarded as being able to be handed over to the neighboring cell;
• gather statistics relating to connection failures experienced by the radio devices in the first group;
• and
• adjust the load sharing boundary based on the gathered statistics in a group-specific manner so as to account for characteristics of the radio devices within the first group independently of characteristics of radio devices in any other groups of the plurality of radio devices, wherein the load sharing zone supported by the radio devices of the first group is configurable to be of a different size than a load sharing zone supported by another group of radio devices of the plurality of radio devices.

A network node in a cellular radio communication system, configured for facilitating load sharing between a serving cell and a neighboring cell of the cellular radio communication system, the serving cell serving a plurality of radio devices, the network node comprising:

• processing circuitry;
• and
• memory storing instructions that, when executed by the processing circuitry, cause the network node to:
• define a first group of radio devices, wherein the first group is a subgroup of the plurality of radio devices served by the serving cell;
• associate the first group of radio devices with a load sharing boundary to a load sharing zone between the serving cell and the neighboring cell, beyond which load sharing boundary any of the radio devices in the first group is regarded as being able to be handed over to the neighboring cell;
• gather statistics relating to connection failures experienced by the radio devices in the first group;
• and
• adjust the load sharing boundary based on the gathered statistics in a group-specific manner so as to account for characteristics of the radio devices within the first group independently of characteristics of radio devices in any other groups of the plurality of radio devices, wherein the load sharing zone supported by the radio devices of the first group is configurable to be of a different size than a load sharing zone supported by another group of radio devices of the plurality of radio devices.