The “uplink” in the embodiments of the disclosure refers to the direction of data from the UE to the network device, such as the direction from the UE to the relay node, the direction from the relay node to the donor node, for example, the relay node transmits a data packet to the donor node (or the central unit of the donor node, or the control plane part of the central unit of the donor node, or the user plane part of the central unit of the donor node), and the data packet may be called an uplink data packet. Correspondingly, “downlink” refers to the direction from the network device to the UE. For example, the donor node transmits data to the relay node, and the relay node transmits data to its lower-level node, and the relay node transmits data to the UE. For example, the donor node (or the central unit of the donor node, or the control plane part of the central unit of the donor node, or the user plane part of the central unit of the donor node) transmits a data packet to the relay node, and the data packet may be called a downlink data packet.
Taking the relay network shown in