A method is proposed for communication traffic load balancing between cells of a communication system which are differently loaded. An evaluation factor is determined by a predefined mapping function for each of a home cell k and at least one other cell l, each evaluation factor being a measure of the load on the respective cells. At least one comparing factor is determined with respect to the home cell evaluation factor by comparing the evaluation factor of the home cell with those of the at least one further cells. Each of the comparing factors has a corresponding traffic load penalty factor. The traffic load penalty factors are a measure of load difference and/or transmission quality between the cells. This assignment is repeated in a loop such that current traffic load penalty factors are determined depending on predefined traffic load penalty factors and/or forerunner traffic load penalty factors determined in earlier cycles of the loop. The current traffic load penalty factors are used to evaluate unused transmission capacity of a cell and/or cells in comparison to the home cell and/or a time at which at least a part of the traffic of the home cell is handed over to at least one cell with unused capacity.