Patent ID: 8897223

Claim:
A method for communicating delivery of a data packet to a user equipment, the method comprising: receiving by a relay node a data packet from a Node B via a first wireless link; conveying by the relay node the received data packet to a user equipment via a second wireless link; determining by the relay node whether the user equipment is likely to handoff; in response to determining that the user equipment is not likely to handoff, sending by the relay node to Node B a first acknowledgement, wherein the first acknowledgement indicates that the relay node received the data packet from Node B, before the relay node receives a second acknowledgement, wherein the second acknowledgement indicates that the user equipment received the received data packet conveyed by the relay node; and in response to determining that the user equipment is likely to handoff and in response to receiving the second acknowledgement from the user equipment, sending by the relay node the first acknowledgment of the data packet to the Node B.