Wireless mesh network

A wireless network comprising

• a first radio node and a second radio node linked to a controller for a mesh network, the controller being connected to a core network, in which the first radio node and the second radio node are configured to broadcast a common cell identifier,
• the controller and the radio nodes comprising one or more processors and storage for instructions executable by the one or more 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 radio node and partially in the controller,
• the user device being dual connected and configured to simultaneously communicate with the first and second radio nodes using:
• a first MAC entity associated with a reference signal transmitted by the first radio node and used to communicate with a MAC entity in the first radio node, and
• a second MAC entity associated with a reference signal transmitted by the second radio node and used to communicate with a MAC entity in the second radio node,
• the link between the controller and the radio nodes carrying RLC SDUs to the user device for first downlink transmissions and carrying RLC SDUs or RLC SDU segments to the user device for downlink retransmissions, and
• when the user device moves from a coverage area of the first radio node to a coverage area of the second radio node, the wireless network is configured to perform a handover of the user device from the first radio node to the second radio node by transferring a current state of the user device from the first radio node to the second radio node without configuring the user device.