Patent ID: 9560676
Date: 2017-01-31
CPC Classifications: H04L,H04W

Claim:
1. A method of operating a wireless feeder network used to couple access base stations of an access network with a communications network, the wireless feeder network comprising a plurality of wireless feeder network components, the plurality of wireless feeder network components comprising a plurality of feeder base stations coupled to the communications network and a plurality of feeder terminals coupled to associated access base stations, each feeder terminal having a feeder link with a feeder base station, and the feeder links being established over a wireless resource comprising a plurality of resource blocks, the method comprising the steps of: grouping a plurality of said wireless feeder network components together as elements of a feeder cluster, said elements comprising a primary element and a secondary element; providing connections between said elements of said feeder cluster, wherein said connections are mediated by an additional wired communications resource configured to be operated in parallel with said wireless resource; in said primary element of said feeder cluster, receiving data transmitted via said wireless resource and performing a primary decoding process to seek to decode at least one resource block allocated for reception of data by said primary element and thereby generate primary decoded data; in said secondary element of said feeder cluster, receiving said data transmitted via said wireless resource and performing a secondary decoding process to seek to decode said at least one resource block allocated for reception of data by said primary element and thereby generate secondary decoded data; transmitting information derived from said secondary decoded data from said secondary element to said primary element via said additional wired communications resource; and in said primary element of said feeder cluster, performing a revised primary decoding process additionally using said information derived from said secondary decoded data received from said secondary element to decode more reliably said at least one resource block allocated for reception of data by said primary element, wherein said secondary decoding process comprises a linked sequence of decoding stages, wherein said secondary element stores decoded data from each stage of said linked sequence of decoding stages, and said secondary decoded data comprises decoded data from a selected stage of said linked sequence of decoding stages, said selected stage comprising one of: a fast Fourier transformation stage, an equalization stage, a demodulation stage, and an error correction stage.