Channel conditions within each of N contiguous cells is determined. Based on at least the determined N channel conditions, there is determined a set of the N cells which are to utilize joint scheduling, and resources for a control channel are jointly assigning to individual cells of the set of cells. In various embodiments, the channel conditions are SINR and load on the control channel; and the set of cells is decided based on potential for mutual interference and/or potential that the control channel will not be filled. The resource may be jointly assigned based on user priority, so that serially for each highest priority user resources are assigned, the assigned resources are then blocked from compiled lists of radio resources, the highest priority user is removed and a next highest priority user is then the highest priority user to continue in the serial iteration.