Patent ID: 11963224
Assignee: SONY GROUP CORPORATION
Field: Digital communication (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 40:
41. An apparatus for wireless communication in a network, the apparatus comprising:
(a) a wireless communication circuit, as a wireless station (STA) operating as either an Access Point (AP) or a non-AP STA, is configured for wirelessly communicating over a channel with other wireless stations (STAs), which are either APs or non-AP STAs, on a wireless local area network (WLAN) in which packets carry frames;
(b) a processor coupled to said wireless communication circuit for operating on the WLAN as a STA;
(c) a non-transitory memory storing instructions executable by the processor for communicating with other STAs; and
(d) wherein said instructions, when executed by the processor, perform one or more steps comprising:
(i) utilizing non-zero backoff procedures for channel contention when said STA supports non-zero backoff procedure, and utilizing legacy backoff procedure for channel contention when said STA does not support non-zero backoff procedures;
(ii) setting an AIFS time for an AC shorter, as a short AIFS time, when using a non-zero backoff procedure, than the length of an AIFS time utilized for that AC when using the legacy backoff procedure toward providing said non-zero backoff procedure with a higher probability of accessing the channel earlier than STAs using said legacy backoff procedure; and
(iii) wherein said station can switch between enabling and disabling said non-zero backoff procedure in different periods of time.