Patent ID: 7031274

Claim:
In a communications environment where multiple instances of diverse access protocols share a communications media, where it is desired that transmissions from one instance not collide with transmissions form another instance, and each instance of an access protocol has the ability to restrict access to the media for all stations in that instance practicing that protocol from a set of stations in that instance, and the stations having the ability to restrict access in each instance can all communicate with the other stations able to restrict access, wherein a method of permitting interoperability of the instances of the access protocols includes the steps of: assigning each instance of each access protocol to separate phases occurring in allocated time periods; communicating the allocated time periods for each protocol instance to the stations having the ability to restrict traffic for that protocol instance; for a selected protocol assembling spoofing frames from an RTS frame transmitted by APs associated with the selected protocol, followed by a CTS frame transmitted by stations associated with the selected protocol; and restricting access of stations in each protocol instance to only those time periods assigned to that protocol instance.