Patent ID: 8131300

Claim:
A method for determining a route within a cell operating in a hybrid-cellular network mode, the method comprising: determining, by a network element comprising a first transceiver, a signal characteristic of a transmission received by the first transceiver from a base station, wherein the signal characteristic comprises one or more of a received signal strength, a carrier to interference ratio, a carrier to noise ratio, a carrier to noise plus interference ratio, a bit error rate, a frame error rate, and a link loading; based on the signal characteristic, determining, by the network element, a particular class of operation from among a plurality of classes of operation for the network element; and choosing, by the network element and based on the network element's determined class of operation, another network element comprising a second transceiver and having a lower class of operation for a routing of data between the network element and the another network element, wherein the another network element is chosen from a group of network elements having a lower class of operation.