Wireless mesh network

A wireless mesh network comprising

• a mesh network controller connected to a core network, a radio node linked to the controller, a first mesh node wirelessly linked to the radio node, and a second mesh node wirelessly linked to the first mesh node,
• the controller, the radio node and the mesh nodes comprising processors and storage for instructions executable by the processors to establish:
• airlink protocol layers executed by a user device and by the mesh network for communication on a wireless access link, the airlink protocol layers being processed partially in the second mesh node and partially in the controller,
• the airlink protocol layers partially processed by the second mesh node include the physical layer and the medium access control layer, and
• the airlink protocol layers partially processed by the controller include the packet data convergence protocol,
• tunneling facilities to carry partially processed data of the user device in user data tunnel packets between the controller and the second mesh node,
• routing facilities in the first mesh node to route the user data tunnel packets to the second mesh node.