METHOD OF BALANCING BACKHAUL DELAYS FOR A SERIES OF DAISY CHAINED RADIO BASE STATIONS

A radio access network comprises a base station controller and a plurality of radio base stations. The radio base stations connect to the base station controller in a daisy chain configuration via a shared communication link. At least one radio base station in the chain includes a priority queue for scheduling packets to be transmitted via the shared communication link to an adjacent radio base station. The priority queue schedules packets for transmission over the shared communication link based on the location of the terminating radio base station for each packet so that packets traversing more hops are given priority over packets traversing fewer hops.