  The LTE standards account for the use of relays to enhance coverage near the
cell edge. In a traditional topology, a mobile can either establish a direct
link to the base station (BS) or a link to the relay, but not both. In this
paper, we consider the benefit of multipoint connectivity in allowing User
Equipment (UEs) to split their transmit power over simultaneous links to the BS
and the relay, in effect transmitting two parallel flows. We model decisions by
the UEs as to: (i) which point of access to attach to (either a relay or a
relay and the BS or only the BS); and (ii) how to allocate transmit power over
these links so as to maximize their total rate. We show that this flexibility
in the selection of points of access leads to substantial network capacity
increase against when nodes operate in a fixed network topology. Individual
adaptations by UEs, in terms of both point of access and transmit power, are
interdependent due to interference and to the possibility of over-loading of
the backhaul links. We show that these decisions can converge without any
explicit cooperation and derive a closed-form expression for the transmit power
levels.
