Abstract: A base station (21, 22, 23) in a radio communication system (20) comprises a channel allocator (62) for allocating communication channels in accordance with a fully distributed dynamic channel allocation method. The channel allocator accesses a Preferred Channel List (PCL) (64) to allocate the communication channels. The PCL ranks channels (116) in accordance with the occurrence of prior events on the channels (112), such as interrupted calls (122), blocked call setup requests (118), and calls successfully completed (106) and in regards to the mean quality margin (110) and the current channel quality (114). The channel allocator (62) allocates (140) the first available channel (128) in the PCL having a free timeslot (132) and with good current channel quality (136). Alternatively, the channel allocator (62) allocates communication channels in accordance with an optimal dynamic channel allocation method.