Patent ID: 8213314

Claim:
A method for transmitting data in a wireless network, comprising: determining, by a base station, whether to instruct a plurality of spatially separated relay stations to relay data from the base station to a mobile station by performing conventional data transmission or to instruct the plurality of spatially separated relay stations to relay data by transmitting the data in a cooperative manner to provide a single virtual space-time block coding (STBC) transmission, the determining being based on reception conditions of the wireless network; wirelessly transmitting, from the base station to the relay stations, an instruction signal instructing the relay stations to relay the data in the cooperative manner according to the determination based on the reception conditions; correlating, by the relay stations, the data according to STBC for transmission over multiple antennas; and wirelessly transmitting the STBC correlated data from the relay stations to the mobile station in response to the instruction signal, wherein the relay stations cooperate to provide a single multiple antenna transmission, wherein wirelessly transmitting the STBC correlated data from the plurality of spatially separated relay stations to the mobile station is prevented when one or more of the relay stations fails to correctly decode the data.