Patent ID: 8139526

Claim:
A wireless communication method in which subscriber stations are each operable for communication with a base station, the base station being capable of performing simultaneous communications with a number of subscriber stations by allocating an available bandwidth among the subscriber stations, the subscriber stations being required to issue bandwidth requests in order to obtain and/or maintain a connection with the base station, and communications between the subscriber stations and the base station being performed partly or wholly through at least one relay station, the method comprising: in the relay station, detecting bandwidth requests issued from a plurality of the subscriber stations, using the detected requests to form at least one combined bandwidth request, and transmitting the combined bandwidth request to the base station; in the base station, responding to the combined bandwidth request by reserving bandwidth for said plurality of subscriber stations; and in the relay station or in the base station, allocating the reserved bandwidth among the plurality of subscriber stations; wherein each connection between a subscriber station and the base station has a connection identifier, the bandwidth request from the subscriber stations including connection identifiers, and the relay station transmitting said combined bandwidth request with a single existing connection identifier which is associated with all connection identifiers used by the subscriber stations connected to the relay station without information identifying each of the subscriber stations.