ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 4 -- United States Patent no. 12,323,824, issued on June 3, was assigned to Telecom Italia S.p.A. (Milan).

"Method for deactivating a cell site in a cellular communication system" was invented by Giorgio Ghinamo (Turin, Italy) and Gianpiero Galati (Turin, Italy).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A cellular system includes cell sites, each having multiple cells. Each cell identifies a radio coverage area and includes communication equipment. A method for managing the cellular system includes determining, among the cell sites, a candidate cell site to be at least partially deactivated. The candidate cell includes at least one associated cell with a load factor below a threshol...