Patent ID: 7701923

Claim:
A method for frame synchronization in a communication network comprising a plurality of base stations, the method comprising a first base station: determining at a start time of reception of a downlink frame received from each of one or more second base stations; determining a radio frequency propagation delay associated with the downlink frame received from each of the one or more second base stations; determining a reference downlink frame transmission start time based on the reception start time of the downlink frame and the radio frequency propagation delay associated with one of the one or more second base stations for use by the first base station in synchronizing its downlink frame transmissions with those of the one or more second base stations; estimating a transmission start time based on the reference downlink frame transmission start time by determining a time interval period between first and second downlink frames from the one of the one or more second base stations and adding a multiple of the time interval period to the reference downlink frame transmission start time; and transmitting a downlink frame at the estimated transmission start time.