Patent ID: 7990944

Claim:
A communication device comprising: a transceiver; a listen-before-talk (LBT) unit configured to: detect a transmission from a first device during an LBT period prior to the start of a downlink subframe of a current synchronous frame, and instruct the transceiver to refrain from transmitting for at least a portion of the downlink subframe if the transmission from the first device is detected during the LBT period; and an adaptive extended quiet period (EQP) unit configured to: set a duty cycle level for the communication device, the duty cycle indicating a portion of a transmission period during which the communication device is permitted to transmit, the transmission period also including extended quiet periods (EQPs) during which the communication device is not permitted to transmit, decrease the duty cycle level if the transmission from the first device is detected during the LBT period, increase the duty cycle level if the transmission from the first device is not detected during the LBT period, decrease the duty cycle level to a predefined intermediate duty cycle level if the duty cycle level is greater than the predefined intermediate duty cycle level, and decrease the duty cycle level to a predefined sharing duty cycle level if the duty cycle level is less than the predefined intermediate duty cycle level.