Patent ID: 8204018

Claim:
A system for transmitting information within a communications network, comprising: a base station for providing network access to a mobile station; a relay station for relaying data between the mobile station and the base station; and a scheduler for providing a transmission region within a frame for: transmitting first data from the base station to the mobile station along a first data path that includes the relay station; and transmitting second data from the base station to the mobile station along a second data path that does not include the relay station, wherein the first data are transmitted at substantially the same time and at substantially the same frequency as the second data are transmitted, and wherein the transmission region provided by the scheduler includes a frame structure for transmitting the first data from the base station to the mobile station along the first data path and a frame structure for transmitting the second data from the base station to the mobile station along the second data path at substantially the same time and at substantially the same frequency, the frame structure including: a first downlink region for the base station to transmit the first data to the mobile station; and a second downlink region, at least partially overlapping frequency resources of the first downlink region and later in time as compared to the first downlink region, for transmitting the second data from the base station to the mobile station and for transmitting a third data from the relay station to the mobile station, wherein the second downlink region provides a shared set of frequency and time resources for the simultaneous transmission of the second data from the base station and the transmission of the third data from the relay station.