Patent ID: 8625479

Claim:
A wireless communication relay network, comprising: a plurality of base stations forming a radio network; a plurality of relay stations in communication with the base stations, each relay station being slaved to a base station to extend radio coverage of the base station; a Multicast Broadcast Services (MBS) scheduler to determine a target transmission time for transmitting a MBS data packet for one or more base stations; a mechanism to operate a base station to send the target transmission time along with the MBS data packet to one or more relay stations that carry the MBS service; and a mechanism to operate, a respective relay station in a relay path of the MBS data packet, to receive the MBS data packet from the base station, to transmit the MBS data packet to a subscriber or mobile station in the network at the target transmission time, and to send a failure indication to a base station when the relay station is not able to transmit the MBS data packet due to a late arrival and to send a warning indication for abnormal early arrival of the MBS data packet.