Patent ID: 8553598

Claim:
A method of operating a wireless communication system comprising: making a determination which of plural transmission modes is to be a selected transmission mode for transmitting plural entities from a network coding node over a radio interface, the plural transmission modes including at least two of the following: (1) an analog network-coded mode wherein plural input entities provided to the network coding node are network-combined by signal interference at a signal level at the network coding node into one analog network-combined output entity; (2) a digital network-coded mode wherein the plural input entities provided to the network coding node are network-combined by operation at a bit level at the network coding node into one or plural digital network-combined output entities; and (3) a symbol-level network-coded mode wherein the plural input entities are already modulated and network-coding is performed on the already-modulated plural input entities to provide one or plural symbol-level network-combined output entities; making the determination by selecting, for each candidate transmission mode, an appropriate expression for sum achievable rate to evaluate; and comparing a resulting evaluation for each selected expression with an evaluation of an expression of a competing candidate transmission mode, and wherein the selecting depends on factors including whether and end-to-end (E2E) analysis or non-end-to-end (non-E2E) analysis is utilized; at the network coding node, in accordance with the determination implementing the selected transmission mode with respect to the plural input entities.