A mobile communications system for permitting the communications of a mobile unit in proximity to a communications service having priority over the communications of the mobile unit. An interference zone is formed around the priority communications site such that if the mobile unit were to transmit in the frequency band of the priority system, interference would be created with the operation of the priority receiver. In order to eliminate interference with the priority system by the mobile unit, a proximity detector determines if the mobile unit is located in the interference zone. Once the determination has been made that the mobile unit is located in the interference zone, the mobile unit alters its transmission to eliminate the interference of the mobile unit with the priority service. Interference may be eliminated, or in other terms, the interference zone may be altered, by ceasing the operation of the mobile unit, changing the operating frequency of the mobile unit, reducing the transmitting power of the mobile unit or by other means well known to those in the art.
A method is provided for preemptively protecting mobile units within a wireless communication system from interference caused by sudden high speed data transmission within the system. The method includes detecting an imminent high speed data transmission in at least one particular cell of the system. At least each current local mobile unit is identified that is in signal communication with a base station of the at least one particular cell. A current operating level for at least each of the current local mobile units is determined. A necessary increase in the current operating level is estimated for at least each of the current local mobile units. A transmit time is predicted for when the imminent high speed data transmission will occur. The current operating level for at least each of the current local mobile units is increased by the corresponding necessary operating level increase at a time no later than the predicted transmit time.
In one embodiment, there is provided a method comprising determining if one or more devices in a system is a conflicting device which device which conflicts with a wireless communications interface in the system by radio frequency which interferes with an operation of the wireless communications interfaces; and dynamically resolving each conflict during operation of the system. According to another embodiment, there is provided a system which includes a conflict detection unit to detect if one or more devices in the system is a conflicting device which conflicts with a wireless communications interface in the system by producing radio frequency which interferes with an operation of the wireless communications interface; and a conflict resolution unit to dynamically resolve each conflict during operation of the system.
Satellite radiotelephone systems include a space-based component that is configured to provide wireless radiotelephone communications in a satellite footprint over a satellite radiotelephone frequency band. The satellite footprint is divided into a plurality of satellite cells, in which satellite radiotelephone frequencies of the satellite radiotelephone frequency band are spatially reused. An ancillary terrestrial network is configured to terrestrially reuse at least one of the ancillary radiotelephone frequencies that is used in a satellite cell in the satellite footprint, outside the cell and in some embodiments separated therefrom by a spatial guardband.
A space-based network for a satellite radiotelephone system includes at least one receive-only satellite and at least one transmit satellite. The transmit satellite can be a transmit-only satellite or a transmit and receive satellite. The receive-only satellite(s) are configured to receive wireless communications from a radiotelephone at a location over a satellite frequency band. The transmit satellite(s) are configured to transmit wireless communications to the radiotelephone at the location over the satellite frequency band. By providing at least one receive-only satellite and at least one transmit satellite, space-based networks can offer a significant link margin, without the need to undesirably burden the radiotelephones themselves to achieve this link margin.
The capacity of a terrestrial wireless communications system that uses a terrestrial frequency band for communications with wireless terminals is expanded by utilizing a satellite frequency band for terrestrially receiving terrestrial communications from the wireless terminals. Since the wireless terminals are configured to transmit communications to a space-based component such as a satellite via a satellite frequency band, these transmissions also may be picked up (received) terrestrially. Thus, terrestrial base stations can be equipped with satellite frequency band receivers that can receive communications from the wireless terminals over a satellite frequency band. By using the satellite frequency band receiver in a terrestrial base station, additional capacity and/or quality of service may be provided for a terrestrial and/or satellite communications system.