Patent ID: 7856031
Filing Date: 2010-12-21
Classification: H04L,H04W

Abstract:
1. A method of providing information regarding medium access control (MAC) to a plurality of stations in a wireless local area network (WLAN) where a plurality of high throughput (HT) stations and a plurality of legacy stations coexist, the method comprising: adaptively generating information that allows legacy and HT stations which receive a data frame having an HT format to simultaneously participate in contention for use of a medium according to a length of an acknowledgement (ACK) frame, transmitted in response to the data frame; and transmitting the adaptively generated information via a frame having a format that can be interpreted by the legacy and HT stations, wherein the adaptively generating comprises calculating a beginning point of an extended interframe space (EIFS) of the legacy stations which receive the data frame so that all stations which receive the data frame can initiate a backoff operation at a same time and inserting the information indicating the calculated beginning point into a physical layer (PHY) header having a legacy format of the data frame, wherein each of the legacy stations is one of an IEEE 802.11a, an IEEE 802.11b station and an IEEE 802.11g station, and wherein the WLAN uses a legacy format for any ACK frame regardless of whether the format of data frame relevant to the ACK frame is HT or legacy.