A method and apparatus for transmitting wireless data to users which
increases the wireless capacity for data transmissions within a sector
served by a base station is disclosed. Accordingly, the sector is
subdivided into a plurality of beams, typically by means of beam forming
antennas, and the user data to be transmitted is time division
multiplexed by scheduling the data into timeslots for transmission via
the beams. Capacity is thus increased by decreasing network interference
and/or transmitting data to more than one user at the same time by means
of the multiple beams, and time division multiplexing the data.
Preferably multiple users can be scheduled on multiple beams
simultaneously in order to increase capacity. Preferably the same user
can be allocated more than one beam if the radio conditions warrant. Such
a system is optimized for data and carries out the following steps: a.
Evaluating the reverse link wireless conditions for each user; b.
responsive to step a, generating information defining the beam or beams
to be utilized by each user; c. generating a Scheduler Metric (SM) for
every user; d. scheduling each of the n beams based on the SM and said
information for each user; and e. transmitting data scheduled in step d
on said n beams.