Patent ID: 8855138

Claim:
A method performed by a donor eNB, comprising: communicating with a relay eNB over an LTE backhaul link; receiving communications related to the relay eNB over one or more backhaul link protocols from one or more network components; and transmitting the communications to the relay eNB over the LTE backhaul link using one or more disparate protocols, wherein the receiving communications related to the relay eNB includes terminating a first transport layer protocol while keeping an application layer intact, wherein the transmitting the communications to the relay eNB over the LTE backhaul link includes forwarding the communications to the relay eNB over a second transport layer for the one or more disparate protocols established with the relay eNB, the second transport layer being separate from the first transport layer and having the same transport protocol type as the first transport layer, and wherein the donor eNB provides the relay eNB with access to a core network.