Patent ID: 9615300
Date: 2017-04-04
CPC Classifications: H04B,H04W

Claim:
1. A wireless access node configured to hand-off a wireless communication device (WCD) to a relay node, comprising: a communication interface configured to exchange communications between the wireless access node and the WCD; and a processing system coupled to the communication interface and configured to determine that a hand-off of the WCD is imminent based on a delta signal strength between a wireless access node signal strength and a relay node signal strength exceeding a predetermined delta signal strength threshold, if the hand-off is imminent, determine whether the WCD is receiving one of streaming media or a Voice Over LTE (VoLTE) communication, if the hand-off is imminent, determine whether the WCD is located to hand-off to a decode-and-forward relay device of the wireless network, if the WCD is about to hand-off to a decode-and-forward relay device and if the WCD is receiving one of streaming media or a VoLTE communication, then extend a hand-off criteria in order to delay hand-off of the WCD to the decode-and-forward relay device wherein extending the hand-off comprises increasing the delta signal strength threshold, and send a request to the decode-and-forward relay device to switch over to a store-and-forward relay mode.