Patent ID: 7912032

Claim:
A method for communicating in a wireless network comprising a plurality of nodes and at least one access point for providing the nodes with access to another network, the method comprising: operating the access point to assign a respective priority level to each of the plurality of nodes based on at least one of an amount of traffic at the node and a quality of service associated with a type of the traffic at the node; operating the access point to transmit a query based on its own status, wherein the query is transmitted to one node of the plurality of nodes to determine if the node has information for transmission to the access point, wherein the access point queries the nodes having a higher priority more times than the nodes having a lower priority, wherein the query invites the node to initiate a transmission with the access point; operating the node, in response to the query, to send a message to the access point indicating whether it has information for transmission to the access point; and when the node sends the message to the access point indicating that it has information for transmission to the access point, operating the node to transmit the information to the access point.