Upper limits on performance from two hop relaying in a high data rate cellular system

High data rate cellular systems such as 1xEV-DO can provide data at high rates to users, but generally these high rates will only be available to users with good links from the base station (BS). Using multi-hops where a relay can receive and retransmit a signal has the potential to improve the data rates for users with poor links from the BS. In this paper we consider the performance which is possible from such a system if all users could be reached using a two hop link at a data rate which is half the maximum data rate for a direct links. This gives us an upper limit on the performance possible from such a multihop system and allows us to consider issues such as fairness and bandwidth allocation