Patent ID: 8213343

Claim:
A method of communication of conversational data signals between terminals over a radio link providing full-duplex transmission of conversational data packets in alternate directions within pairs of time slots, said communication comprising time periods, each time period comprising a set of said pairs of time slots, and said terminals comprising respective reception and transmission modules for use in processing said conversational data packets respectively received at and transmitted from the corresponding terminal, the method comprising: sending a first conversational activity signal from a first terminal of said terminals to a second terminal of said terminals in response to detecting conversational activity local to the first terminal said terminals; sending a second conversational activity signal from the second terminal to the first terminal in response to detecting conversational activity local to the second terminal; controlling said reception and transmission modules to communicate by half-duplex transmission of said conversational data packets in response to conversational activity local to one of said first and second terminals but not at the other of said first and second terminals; and at least partially deactivating said reception module at said first terminal and said transmission module at said second terminal during said half-duplex transmission so as to reduce their power consumption; wherein said local conversational activity detection is performed during each of said time periods at each of said first and second terminals, and said first and second conversational activity signals are sent from each of the first and second terminals to the other of said first and second terminals at least once during each of said time periods.