Patent ID: 6697855
Filing Date: 2004-02-24
Classification: H04L,H04W

Abstract:
An access method for accessing a transmission channel shared between a plurality of stations, said method comprising:an estimation operation of estimating access requirements of each of the plurality of stations for access to the transmission channel; a group determination operation of determining groups of stations taking into account the estimated access requirements of the plurality of stations, wherein only one of the groups of stations is a collective group; a first threshold defining operation of defining a first stability threshold, S, applicable to a sum of estimated access requirements of the collective group, wherein, in said group determination operation, a group is determined such that the collective group has a sum of access requirements of stations included in the group that is not greater than the first stability threshold; and an allocation operation of allocating, to each of the groups, access rights respectively corresponding to an interval of time during which stations that are not part of a group are not authorized to access the transmission channel, and during which, if a group is the collective group, each station in that group gains access to the transmission channel according to a contention method.