Patent ID: 7483408

Claim:
A method of receiving backhauled communication signals in a wireless communications network, said signals comprising forward error correction coded frames and said method being carried out at a combiner node in the communications network and said method comprising, the step of; (i) receiving backhauled encoded signals from a plurality of basestations in the communications network, said backhauled encoded signals being formed from signals from a given user equipment, wherein said backhauled signals have not undergone decoding prior to reception at said combiner node and wherein said backhauled encoded signals comprise signals received by said plurality of base stations which have been processed to form complex received signal values each representative of a modulation symbol and said backhauled encoded signals have not undergone demodulation prior to reception at said node and wherein said backhauled encoded signals comprise a plurality of signal-to-noise-and-interference-ratio estimates per said coded frame.