Patent ID: 8498221

Claim:
A method, said method comprising: determining if a downlink data packet needs to be transmitted; transmitting said downlink data packet; determining if an uplink data packet has been received; determining if said received uplink data packet was transmitted by a protected station; performing scheduling by estimating a length of a protected portion of a scheduling cycle, said protected portion of said scheduling cycle being an interval reserved for use of said protected station; determining if said length of said protected portion of said scheduling cycle is greater than a length of said scheduling cycle ranking said links in said wireless network, and dismissing one of said links if said protected portion of said scheduling cycle is greater than a length of said scheduling cycle; and collecting data regarding said protected station and said link used by said protected station to transmit said received uplink data packet, measuring an inter-frame interval, and updating a running average of inter-frame interval duration, said collected data and said average inter-frame interval being used to estimate said length of said protected portion of said scheduling cycle.