Patent ID: 7738480

Claim:
A method of communicating over a network using a communications protocol including the use of a plurality of communication cycles, wherein each of the plurality of communication cycles has a contention-based cycle portion and a contention-free cycle portion, and wherein the contention-free cycle portion includes a channel, the method comprising: sending a first command over the network to a first processor, wherein the first command is to set a flag to a first status, wherein the flag is adapted to be set to the first status and a second status; receiving the flag; sending a second command over the network to the first processor if the flag is not set to the first status, wherein the second command is to set the flag to the first status; and receiving data in a contention-based transmission over the channel if the flag is set to the first status, wherein the first status of the flag corresponds to a permission to use the channel for contention-based transmissions, and the second status of the flag corresponds to a permission to use the channel for contention-free transmissions.