Patent ID: 8958364
Filing Date: 2015-02-17
Classification: H04L,H04W

Abstract:
1. A method of operating a radio access network comprising a donor base station node and a relay base station node, the relay base station node participating in communications across a first radio interface with a wireless terminal and also participating in communications over a backhaul link across a second radio interface, the second radio interface reusing at least some functionality, the method comprising: configuring a subframe configuration pattern, the subframe configuration pattern being arranged to specify which subframe(s) of a frame structure may be utilized for the backhaul link; and as a result thereof, making a HARQ process state in a HARQ process at one of the base station nodes known by the other base station node wherein the act of configuring the subframe configuration pattern comprises re-configuring the subframe configuration pattern after a previous configuration of the subframe pattern, the re-configuring comprising changing a number of HARQ processes in at least one of the donor base station node or the relay station node and/or changing a mapping of HARQ processes to subframes of the frame structure; and wherein making the HARQ process state in the HARQ process at one of the base station nodes known by the other base station node is performed in response to the re-configuring.