Patent ID: 8446856

Claim:
A method for operating a user agent in a wireless communication network, the method comprising: calculating, by a user agent, a relay node selection rank for a plurality of relay nodes based on an equation of RN Reselect (RN)=RSRP (RN)+Preference (RN)+PowerOffset (RN)+Hysteresis, wherein RN Reselect (RN) is the relay node selection rank, RSRP (RN) is measured relay node power, Preference (RN) is preference or priority parameter for relay node, PowerOffset (RN) is power offset parameter for relay node, and Hysteresis is hysteresis parameter for relay node; ranking, by the user agent, the plurality of relay nodes based on the calculated ranks; selecting, by the user agent, a relay node from the plurality of relay nodes based at least partly on the relay node selection ranks as ranked by the user agent; and recommending, by the user agent, the relay node to an access node in the wireless communication network.