Patent ID: 7463892

Claim:
In a wireless network having a number of stations sharing access to a wireless transmission medium, a computer-implemented method of scheduling access of traffic flows of data packets from respective packet queues for the traffic flows in the wireless stations to the wireless transmission medium, the method comprising the steps of: (a) for each of the traffic flows, obtaining a desired minimum age of an oldest data packet in the respective packet queue, obtaining a desired maximum age of the oldest data packet in the respective packet queue, and obtaining or estimating a time of creation of the oldest data packet in the respective packet queue, and (b) eliminating from consideration for immediate access to the wireless transmission medium traffic flows for which the sum of the desired minimum age of the oldest data packet in the respective packet queue and the time of creation of the oldest data packet in the respective packet queue is greater than the present time, and for traffic flows that are not eliminated from consideration for immediate access to the wireless transmission medium, granting access to the wireless transmission medium to the traffic flow having a smallest sum of the desired maximum age of the oldest data packet in the respective packet queue and the time of creation of the oldest data packet in the respective packet queue.