Patent ID: 7068633

Claim:
A method for providing quality of service (QoS)-driven channel access within a basic service set (BSS) in a wireless network, the method comprising: a) in a contention-free period (CFP) of a superframe that also includes a contention period (CP), sending a contention control (CC) frame from a point coordinator (PC) station of the BSS, the CC frame containing: a1) information relating to a number of available centralized contention opportunities (CCOs) for receiving a reservation request (RR) non-data frame in a centralized contention interval (CCI) following the CC frame, and a2) information identifying stations from which a RR was successfully received by the PC station in a preceding CCI; b) receiving the CC frame at a non-PC station in the BSS; c) sending an RR non-data frame in a selected one of the available CCOs in the CCI in response to the received CC frame, the RR non-data frame being sent from the non-PC station when the non-PC station has a burst of data frames to send, and the RR non-data frame indicating an amount of bandwidth requested by the non-PC station sending the RR non-data frame for transmitting the burst of data frames; d) receiving the RR non-data frame at the PC-station in one of the CCOs of the CCI; e) sending a multipoll frame from the PC station containing information relating to at least two transmission opportunities (TOs) assigned to at least one non-PC station in the BSS for data transmission; f) receiving the multipoll frame at at least one non-PC station in the BSS; and g) sending at least one data frame in respective TOs from each non-PC station that is identified in the multipoll frame in response to the received multipoll frame.