Systems and methodologies are described that facilitate providing user plane support for internet protocol (IP) relays. Service data units (SDU) received at a radio communication layer can be provided to an upper communication layer, such as a packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) layer, without regard to sequence numbers. The upper communication layer can handle reordering of the received protocol data units. Since communications related to a plurality of devices through one or more IP relays can be mapped over a single bearer, allowing reordering at the upper communication layer can mitigate delay caused where a donor or other upstream access point is delayed in providing a sequential SDU related to one of a plurality of devices downstream. In this regard, SDUs related to other devices can be processed by the upper communication layer while waiting for the sequential SDU.