Patent ID: 8849291

Claim:
A method of wireless communications between a wireless communications network and a wireless user equipment, comprising: identifying, by the wireless communications network, a first node of the wireless communications network as a serving node for the wireless user equipment, the serving node for transmissions in a first direction between the wireless user equipment and the wireless communications network, the serving node comprising a serving base station; identifying, by the wireless communications network, a second node of the wireless communications network as a supplemental node; using, by the wireless communications network, the supplemental node for transmissions in a second direction between the wireless communications network and the user equipment; wherein the serving node is configured to provide scheduling parameters to the supplemental node; wherein identifying the second node includes identifying the second node of the wireless communications network that receives a stronger uplink signal from the wireless user equipment than the uplink signal received at the serving node from the user equipment, as the supplemental node; wherein transmissions in the first direction are downlink transmissions from the serving node to the user equipment; wherein transmissions in the second direction are uplink transmissions from the user equipment to the supplemental node; wherein identifying the second node as the supplemental node further includes identifying a plurality of additional nodes of the wireless communications network as a plurality of uplink supplemental nodes forming an uplink supplemental node set; and wherein using the supplemental node for transmissions in the second direction between the wireless communications network and the wireless user equipment includes receiving uplink transmissions from the wireless user equipment by the plurality of the uplink supplemental nodes in the uplink supplemental node set.