Patent ID: 7684813

Claim:
A method for operating a radiotelephone system, the method comprising: at one or more mobile stations of the radiotelephone system, detecting other mobile stations to which radio propagation conditions are sufficiently good; at the one or more mobile stations, communicating information about the detected mobile stations to a base station of the radiotelephone system; at a first mobile station, after the detecting the other mobile stations to which the radio propagation conditions are sufficiently good and after the communicating the information about the detected mobile stations, requesting communication with a second mobile station; at the base station, if the radio propagation conditions between the first mobile station and the second mobile station are sufficiently good, instructing the first mobile station and the second mobile station to establish direct communication; and at the first mobile station, in response to the instruction to establish direct communication, entering a packet-based connectionless communication mode with the second mobile station, wherein the packet-based connectionless communication mode comprising entering an Opportunity Driven Multiple Access relay mode, wherein the instruction step includes: initiating a first communication link between the base station and the first mobile station; communicating a direct communication instruction to the first mobile station; initiating a second communication link between the base station and the second mobile station; communicating a direct communication instruction to the second mobile station; and terminating the first communication link and the second communication link.