Transmission rank selection when deploying a shared radio cell

1. A method performed by a base station for selecting a transmission rank, wherein the base station is serving a first radio cell and is operating in a shared radio cell environment where a single physical-layer cell identity (abbreviated PCI) is shared among the base station and radio units serving other radio cells, and wherein the base station and the radio units are transmission points serving one or several user equipments in respective radio cells utilizing said single PCI, the method comprising:

receiving a channel-state report from a user equipment;

estimating a channel quality parameter, which reflects a relation (Δ) between estimated receive power on a data channel allocated to the user equipment and estimated receive power on a control channel allocated to the user equipment; and

selecting the transmission rank on the basis of the received channel-state report as well as the estimated channel quality parameter.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein estimating the channel quality parameter comprises:

deriving the relation (Δ) between estimated receive power on said data channel and estimated receive power on said control channel from respective transmit powers of selected transmission points of said data channel and said control channel, respectively.

3. The method according to claim 2 , wherein deriving the relation (Δ) between estimated receive power on said data channel and estimated receive power on said control channel from selected transmission points of said data channel (Sd) and said control channel (Sc), respectively, comprises:

collecting data related to the respective transmit powers (P i ) of the selected transmission points of said data channel and said control channel, respectively;

for each transmit power, calculating a product from the transmit power (P i ) multiplied by a respective path gain (G i );

calculating a sum (Σ iεSd Gi×Pi) of all products related to said data channel;

calculating a sum (Σ iεSc Gi×Pi) of all products related to said control channel;

calculating a quotient

(

∑

i

∈

Sd

⁢

Gi

×

Pi

∑

i

∈

Sc

⁢

Gi

×

Pi

)

from the sum (Σ iεSd Gi×Pi) of all products related to said data channel and the sum (Σ iεSc Gi×Pi) of all products related to said control channel.

4. The method according to claim 3 , wherein deriving the relation (Δ) between estimated receive power on said data channel and estimated receive power on said control channel from selected transmission points of the data channel (Sd) and the control channel (Sc), comprises calculating said relation (Δ) utilizing the following formula:

Δ

=

10

⁢

log

10

(

∑

i

∈

Sd

⁢

Gi

×

Pi

∑

i

∈

Sc

⁢

Gi

×

Pi

)

.

5. The method according to claim 1 , wherein estimating the channel quality parameter comprises:

estimating a Signal-to-Interference Ratio, SINR, wherein the estimation of the SINR reflects said relation (Δ) between estimated receive power on said data channel and estimated receive power on said control channel.

6. The method according to claim 5 , wherein estimating the SINR comprises: estimating the SINR according to the formula SINR=PSD PDSCH +GINR est +OL+Δ; wherein

PSD PDSCH represents a power spectral density for Physical Downlink Shared Channel, PDSCH, elements in Orthogonal Frequency Division Muliplexing, OFDM, elements without reference symbols;

GINR est represents a Gain-to-Interference Ratio mapped from the received channel-state report from the user equipment;

OL represents a outer loop adjustment; and wherein

Δ quantifies the relation (Δ) between estimated receive power on said data channel and estimated receive power on said control channel.

7. The method according to claim 5 , comprising:

comparing the estimated SINR with a threshold value; and

selecting a first transmission rank when the estimated SINR is below said threshold value; and

selecting a second transmission rank when the estimated SINR is equal to or above said threshold value.

8. The method according to claim 7 , wherein the threshold value is approximately five decibel.

9. The method according to claim 1 , wherein receiving a channel-state report from the user equipment comprises receiving one or more of the following: a Channel Quality Indicator, CQI; a Rank Indicator, RI; and a Pre-coder Matrix Indicator, PMI.

10. A base station for selecting a transmission rank, wherein the base station is configured to serve a first radio cell and is configured to operate in a shared radio cell environment where a single physical-layer cell identity (PCI) is shared among the base station and radio units configured to serve other radio cells, and wherein the base station and the radio units are transmission points configured to serve one or several user equipments in respective radio cells utilizing said single PCI, the base station comprising:

a receiver configured to receive a channel-state report from a user equipment;

a processor; and

a memory storing computer program code which, when run in the processor causes the base station to estimate a channel quality parameter which reflects a relation between estimated receive power on a data channel allocated to the user equipment and estimated receive power on a control channel allocated to the user equipment, and to select the transmission rank on the basis of the received channel-state report as well as the estimated channel quality parameter.

11. The base station according to claim 10 , wherein the memory and the computer program code are configured to, together with the processor, derive the relation (Δ) between estimated receive power on said data channel and estimated receive power on said control channel from respective transmit powers of selected transmission points of said data channel and said control channel, respectively.

12. The base station according to claim 10 , wherein the base station is an evolved NodeB.