Patent ID: 7720020

Claim:
A method of performing communication in a two-hop wireless communication network, wherein a base station, at least one mobile station and a plurality of relay stations are engaged in, or in the process of establishing, a communication session, and wherein the relay stations forward signals from the base station to the at least one mobile station, said plurality of relay stations having at least partially overlapping coverage, said method comprising the steps of: establishing by said at least one mobile station a soft association to said plurality of relay stations by internally selecting a set of relay channels from said number of relay stations, said set of relay channels associated to the relay stations being candidates for use in the communication session; feeding back from the at least one mobile station, during the communication session, information on the communication quality to the base station; and, adapting in the base station the transmission to at least one of the relay stations which the mobile station has soft association with, in response to the communication quality feedback from the at least one mobile station.