A base station for a wireless network has multiple channels for communicating with user equipments, and has multiple channel reuse patterns. The patterns are complementary such that areas of low carrier to interference ratio C/I of one pattern are not coincident with areas of low C/I of other patterns. An allocator allocates channels such that for user equipment located in an area of low C/I of any of the complementary patterns, the allocator favors allocation of a channel of another of the complementary patterns. The sacrifice of capacity can be reduced as there is less need for a capacity-hungry high re-use factor pattern. The channels may be frequencies, time slots or CDMA codes. The reuse patterns can involve reuse on selected base stations, or on selected sectors, or different polarizations. The network can be of any type including fixed wireless access FWA, or mobile networks.