Patent ID: 7561591

Claim:
A TDMA communications apparatus for carrying out communication using TDMA technology in which a frame is divided into a plurality of slots, a slot being treated as a unit of data transmission, and said TDMA communications apparatus performs TDMA communication while reserving slots for own transmission, said TDMA communications apparatus comprising: conflict avoidance means for avoiding slot allocation conflicts with other stations by transmitting a message indicating that own station will re-reserve another slot for own transmission within a predefined period upon detecting that a slot reserved for own use has been reserved by another station as well, wherein said TDMA communications apparatus having a mode in which a slot at the same location as a current slot is reserved in each of succeeding frames, wherein the conflict avoidance means transmits a message indicating that the own station will re-reserve another slot for own transmission within the predefined period in a next frame upon detecting that a slot reserved for own use in the next frame has been reserved by another station as well.