Patent ID: 7974246

Claim:
A method for exchanging information within a radio communications system, comprising: during a period of lower traffic load on the radio communications system, establishing communications between a selected radio system and at least one other radio system of a plurality of radio systems in the radio communications system utilizing a carrier sense multiple access mode, comprising: transmitting a control message from selected radio system including transmit queue status information indicating a number of messages ready for transmission by the selected radio system; determining with the at least one other radio system, from the transmit queue status information, that a traffic load on the communications system allows carrier sense multiple access communications; detecting a quiet period on the radio communications system with the selected radio communications system; and transmitting at least one message from the selected radio system in the detected quiet period; and during a period of higher traffic load on the radio communications system, establishing communications between the selected radio system and the at least one other radio system utilizing a time division multiple access mode.