Patent ID: 8446933

Claim:
A method comprising: determining, at a wireless device, whether there is an advantage to transmitting a data frame to an access point via a relay node over transmitting the data frame directly from the wireless device to the access point, wherein said determining whether there is the advantage comprises: receiving, at the wireless device, a relay node frame from the relay node indicating that the relay node is available to relay frames to the access point and including information identifying an associated transmit power level used to transmit the relay node frame; and determining a difference between the transmit power identified in the relay node frame and a power level measured during reception of the relay node frame; in response to a determination that there is the advantage to transmitting the data frame to the access point via the relay node, establishing a direct wireless link between the wireless device and the relay node; and transmitting the data frame from the wireless device to the relay node for further transmission to the access point, wherein the data frame comprises routing information including a source address field, an intermediate address field including an address of the relay node, and a destination address field including an address of an ultimate destination device, and wherein the ultimate destination device is not the relay node.