Patent ID: 8073384

Claim:
A wireless network comprising: a central node; a plurality of bi-directional nodes in bi-directional wireless communication with the central node, each of the bi-directional nodes having a wireless communication path to the central node that is either a direct path or an indirect path through one or more intermediate bi-directional nodes serving as relay nodes; and a plurality of transmit-only meters that wirelessly transmit meter data that is then relayed by one or more bi-directional nodes to the central node, the central node configured to receive information concerning the one-way communication performance between a bi-directional node and each of a set of transmit-only meters in range of the bi-directional node, to compile a list of a subset of the transmit-only meters from which data is permitted to be relayed by said bi-directional node, and to transmit the list to said bi-directional node.