Abstract: When a first communication unit (204) receives a request from a second communication unit (102) (over an ad hoc network) to relay a call, the first communication unit will start a data call (e.g., voice over IP call) over the cellular link using the cellular phone's data capability. Since, for billing and authentication purposes, this call should be billed to the second communication unit, the cellular phone call is not set up using the standard call setup procedure (i.e. Destination phone number from the second communication unit and Originating phone number from the first communication unit). Instead, the call is setup as a “free” phone call from a first communication unit to a predefined, free number. The relay passes through the cellular link as data in the form of a data call (e.g., VoIP call). The cellular infrastructure would then route the call to its final destination.

Abstract: Base site deployment in a cellular communication system takes place by positioning a base site antenna (102) mid block, with the main bore of the antenna (102) pointing parallel to the street (104) in which the antenna (102) is located (104). Additionally, the base site antenna (102) is located below the rooftop of any buildings (118) occupying the street (104). Multiple base site antennas (201-211) are formed into a cluster (214) existing in an N.times.N city block area such that the bore of each antenna (201-211) is positioned to point into the center of the cluster (214) and parallel to the street that it is located. Positioning base site antennas (201-211) in such a way will serve to channel, or canyon, the Radio Frequency propagation from the antennas (201-211) in a direction of the antenna's (201-211) main lobe (120) and back lobe (122), reducing cochannel and adjacent channel interference.

Abstract: The present disclosure includes a discussion of a bit error rate detection method for use in a digital radio communication system. The digital radio communication system contains multiple radios which transmit and receive radio frequency (RF) signals. The RF signals are formatted into multiple frames, each frame has a predetermined number of data bits, a subset of which have known values. A first frame of data is transmitted. The first frame is received and the subset of known data bits are extracted. Each data bit of the received subset of known data bits are compared to the known set of data bits and a counter is incremented in response to each comparison which results in difference between the received bit and the set of known bits. The counter value is used to determine a bit error rate of the received first frame at a predetermined confidence level.

Abstract: A radio-on timer and transmission-on timer of a cellular telephone (100) provide an accurate record of the total amount of time since manufacture that the cellular telephone (100) and its transmitter (160), respectively, have been turned on for the purpose of measuring the in-field reliability thereof. The cellular telephone (100) includes a processor (110) that is responsive an interrupt signal (117) for incrementing and storing an interrupt timer, the radio-on timer and the transmission-on timer in a volatile memory 114. When the processor (110) senses that power has been switched off, the processor (110) reads out from the volatile memory (114) the radio-on timer and transmission-on timer, reads out from the non-volatile memory (112) the previously stored radio-on timer and transmission-on timer, adds them together and stores the summed radio-on timer and transmission-on timer back in the non-volatile memory (112).

Abstract: The apparatus and method for transferring radio specific data from the memory of an integral logic unit of a radiotelephone to a second, replacement, memory is disclosed. Security of the data is realized by encoding the radio specific data with an operative number generated from a seed number. If the radio specific data is properly transferred to the second memory, the radio specific data is deleted from the memory of the integral logic unit.