Patent ID: 8050219

Claim:
A node of a wireless network, comprising: a communication unit arranged to communicate with a second node over a radio link; a control SAP unit arranged to transfer radio resource control (RRC) information to implement protocol layers of a radio protocol architecture between units of the node that implement layer 1 (L1), layer 2 (L2), and layer 3 (L3) functions of the radio protocol architecture; and a data SAP unit arranged to transfer user data between the units of the node that implement the L1, L2, and L3 layer functions of the radio protocol architecture; and a processing unit arranged to control operations of the node to implement the protocol layers of the radio protocol architecture, wherein the radio protocol architecture comprises: a convergence sublayer (CS) to provide service specific convergence functions to convert the user data received from a transport protocol layer above the L3 layer into service data units (SDU) and vice versa; a MAC common part sublayer-high (CPS-H) to provide radio resource control (RRC) functionalities; a MAC common part sublayer-low (CPS-L) to provide radio link control (RLC) and MAC functionalities including converting the SDUs from the CS sublayer and control information units carrying control (RRC) messages from the CPS-H sublayer to MAC protocol data units (PDUs) and vice versa; and a PHY layer to transfer the MAC PDUs from the CPS-L sublayer over the radio links to the second node and vice versa.