Patent ID: 9571294
Date: 2017-02-14
CPC Classifications: H04L,H04W

Claim:
1. A communication device for communicating with a plurality of terminals via a wireless network, the communication device being configured to, when it has a message to broadcast to the plurality of terminals: determine, in dependence on a bandwidth available to the wireless network and/or a loading associated with the wireless network, an indication of the wireless network's ability to accommodate an increase in traffic if the plurality of terminals acknowledge the broadcast message; select, from a plurality of acknowledgement mechanisms and in dependence on the determined indication, an acknowledgement mechanism for the terminals to use in acknowledging receipt of the message with a lower likelihood of acknowledgments clashing, wherein the plurality of acknowledgement mechanisms includes allocating a future transmission slot to a terminal of the plurality of terminals for transmitting an acknowledgement; and communicate the selected acknowledgement mechanism to the plurality of terminals, wherein, in response to the communication device selecting allocating a future transmission slot to a first terminal of the plurality of terminals, the communication device is configured to communicate to the first terminal an indication of which transmission slot the first terminal should use to transmit the first terminal's acknowledgement.