Patent ID: 8483062

Claim:
A method for flow control of a relay node in a wireless communication system, the method comprising: receiving, by the relay node from a base station, flow control information for a Un interface between the relay node and the base station, the flow control information comprising a suspend threshold and a resume threshold; determining whether to request to suspend or resume transmission based on the flow control information; transmitting a transmission suspend command to the base station if a data amount of a reception buffer is greater than the suspend threshold, the transmission suspend command requesting to suspend the transmission; and starting a suspend timer as the transmission suspend command is transmitted, wherein if the data amount of the reception buffer exceeds the suspend threshold when the suspend timer expires, retransmitting the transmission suspend command to the base station at the expiry of the suspend timer; and restarting the suspend timer, wherein if the data amount of the reception buffer is equal to or less than the resume threshold, transmitting a transmission resume command to the base station, stopping the suspend timer, and starting a resume timer, the transmission resume command requesting to resume the transmission, and wherein if no data is received by the relay node from the base station until the resume timer expires, retransmitting the transmission resume command to the base station, and restarting the resume timer.