Self-backhaul method and apparatus in wireless communication networks

A slave base station for implementing wireless backhaul in conjunction with a master base station in a wireless communication network, said slave base station comprising:

• transceiver means for receiving from or sending to a subscriber station information;
• wherein said transceiver means is further used for receiving from and sending to the master base station backhaul information over uplink and downlink backhaul channels between said slave base station and said first base station that are formed by using timeslots of base stations' own;
• wherein the slave base station is configured to use the same frame length as the master base station, each frame comprising a downlink and a consecutive uplink part;
• wherein the slave base station is configured for applying a time offset to determine its frame start time in relation to the frame start time of the master base station, so as to form an uplink backhaul window and a downlink backhaul window between the slave base station and the master base station;
• wherein the duration of the downlink backhaul window and the uplink backhaul window is equal to the time offset;
• wherein backhaul traffic is between the master base station and slave base station, and any local user access traffic is between either the master base station or slave base station and a mobile station.

A method of implementing wireless backhaul traffic between a first base station and a second base station in a wireless communication network, comprising:

• a) forming an uplink backhaul channel and a downlink backhaul channel between said first base station and said second base station by using timeslots in the base stations' own frames also used for local user access traffic;
• and
• b) implementing uplink and downlink backhaul traffic between said first base station and said second base station by using said uplink backhaul channel and said downlink backhaul channel;
• wherein a time offset is used to offset the frame start time of the second base station in relation to the frame start time of the first base station, so as to form an uplink backhaul window for the uplink backhaul channel and a downlink backhaul window for the downlink backhaul channel between the first base station and the second base station;
• wherein the first base station is a master of the second base station and the second base station is a slave of the first base station;
• wherein backhaul traffic is between the master base station and slave base station, and any local user access traffic is between either the master base station or slave base station and a mobile station.