Patent ID: 7423966

Claim:
A method for managing, within a group of plural communication stations in a wireless communication network, bandwidth-sharing of available, unused bandwidth, said method comprising determining, for each of successive, time-spaced respectively current time intervals, a maximum available transmit budget relating to expected, available, unused bandwidth, establishing a two-part component-division of the maximum budget, characterizing one of the two component-division parts as a reserve-available bandwidth component-division, and the other part as a non-reserve-available bandwidth component-division, broadcasting, in each of the mentioned respectively current time intervals, a beacon to all stations in the group, announcing the availability to all, in a next, associated, successive time interval, of only the non-reserve-available bandwidth component-division, reserving the unannounced reserve-available bandwidth component-division for access and use, in the mentioned next, associated, successive time interval, preferentially by only the station(s) which is/are engaged in transmission communication during the respectively current time interval which precedes the mentioned next, associated, successive time interval, and specifically controlling delivery and use of all available transmission budget by requiring, of individual communication stations, self-governing of demands for available bandwidth through self-established transmission-limits which are larger for the stations that are currently transmitting, and smaller for all other stations.