Patent ID: 7873002

Claim:
A method for transmitting data control message streams among base stations, relay stations, and subscriber stations in a wireless relay communication network, comprising: operating a base station to receive protocol data units for subscriber stations from a network; operating the base station to create relay protocol data units from the protocol data units based on a relay station topology of two or more relay stations under control of the base station, wherein operating the base station to create relay protocol data units comprises generating a first group of received protocol data units for a first relay station based on the relay station topology, generating a second, different group of received protocol data units for a second relay station based on the relay station topology, including the first group of received protocol data units into a relay protocol data unit for the first relay station, and including the second group of received protocol data units into the relay protocol data unit for the first relay station as a subordinate relay protocol data unit for the second relay station, wherein the second relay station is subordinate to the first relay station; and operating the base station to generate a transmission schedule with channel resources allocation information, in which at least one relay station is designated to receive corresponding created relay protocol data units; and causing the first relay station to receive the relay protocol data unit for the first relay station, decode the received relay protocol data unit into a decoded subordinate relay protocol data unit and one or more decoded protocol data units, transmit the one or more decoded protocol data units to one or more subscriber stations, respectively, and transmit the decoded subordinate relay protocol data unit to the second relay station to cause the second relay station to transmit one or more protocol data units to one or more one or more subscriber stations.