Patent ID: 8311061

Claim:
A relay node for operating in a wireless communication network including an access node, wherein the relay node is configured to communicate wirelessly with the access node, the relay node comprising: a processor configured to multiplex a plurality of medium access control layer (MAC) packet data units (PDUs) received from a plurality of user agents to form a first Super-MAC PDU, and to transmit the first Super-MAC PDU to the access node, and wherein the processor is further configured to demultiplex a second Super-MAC PDU received from the access node and transmit, after demultiplexing, ones of a plurality of MAC PDUs contained in the second Super-MAC PDU to corresponding ones of the plurality of user agents, and wherein the processor is further configured to calculate a total amount of data for an uplink transmission and to form a single buffer status report (BSR) based on buffers of a plurality of user agents, and cause the BSR to be transmitted to the access node.