Patent ID: 8493995

Claim:
A method for communicating between stations in a network, the method comprising: coordinating among a plurality of the stations according to a distributed protocol and based on a contention period to select a first station to transmit over a shared medium; and transmitting between the first station and a second station over the shared medium during a first time period, wherein the first station is allocated the first time period for transmitting over the shared medium in response to contending with others of the plurality of stations during the contention period, in which stations other than the first and second stations refrain from transmitting over the shared medium, including transmitting from the first station information that grants permission to the second station to transmit for a specified amount of time during the first time period and transmitting information that indicates the specified amount of time to the second station, wherein the first station transmits the information that grants permission after receiving a transmission from the second station that includes an amount of time that is requested, and wherein a second time period, non-overlapping with the first time period, is allocated to the second station.