Patent ID: 8391254

Claim:
A multi-hop wireless communication network, the network comprising: a relay communication unit operable to relay a plurality of signals bi-directionally between a base station and at least one mobile communication unit; and the base station configured to send traffic information to the at least one mobile communication unit via the relay communication unit, to send overhead information directly to the at least one mobile communication unit, and to allocate bandwidth for sending the overhead information to the at least one mobile communication unit, wherein the relay communication unit is configured to allocate bandwidth for sending the traffic information to the at least one mobile communication unit and wherein to relay the plurality of signals, the relay communication unit is configured to: send to the base station a request to change an allocation of sub-carriers to the relay communication unit for a first downlink segment from the base station, receive a first signal on at least one of a dedicated sub-carrier and a dynamic sub-carrier in the first downlink channel segment from the base station, and transmit the received first signal to the at least one mobile communication unit on a dynamic sub-carrier in a second downlink channel segment, wherein a relay communication unit subcarrier allocation is based upon a reported channel quality of at least one of the relay communication unit and a mobile communication unit that directly communicates with the base station, and wherein the relay communication unit is a mobile relay communication unit.