An embodiment of an apparatus for determining clusters of access nodes includes a processing apparatus configured to determine a first cluster based on a first metric, wherein the first cluster comprises one or more access nodes for serving at least a first user node, assign further user nodes to be served by the one or more access nodes of the first cluster based on a spatial separation of the further user nodes and a second metric, and determine at least a further cluster by repeating the determining and assigning steps for further access nodes and user nodes.