Patent ID: 8811270
Filing Date: 2014-08-19
Classification: H04J,H04W

Abstract:
1. A method of sharing bandwidth of a shared medium between multiple devices, the shared medium being structured in accordance with a frame or superframe structure, each frame or superframe having medium access slots of specified time duration defined therein, columns of contiguous medium access slots defining different allocations zones, rows of medium access slots defining coordinated sets of medium access slots, wherein the medium access slots of a coordinated set belonging to different allocation zones are equally spaced in time, the method comprising: identifying a reservation for the shared medium as a regular reservation or an irregular reservation; if the reservation for the shared medium is identified as being the regular reservation, allocating all of the medium access slots in one or more of the coordinated sets to the multiple devices; and if the reservation for the shared medium is identified as being the irregular reservation, allocating medium access slots to the multiple devices such that a number of unallocated medium access slots that are contiguous within each of the allocation zones is maximized.