Patent ID: 7613146

Claim:
A method for transmitting data from a sender node from among at least one sender node to a receiver node in a wireless network, the method comprising: (a) sampling, by the receiver node, in each time slot, a main network frequency and at least one backup frequency; (b) transmitting, by the sender node, a message on the main network frequency in a first time slot, without using a multiple access protocol; (c) transmitting, by the sender node, the message on the main network frequency in a next time slot, using the multiple access protocol exchange, if an acknowledgement of the message is not received from the receiver node; (d) transmitting, by the sender node, the message on at least one backup frequency in the next time slot, using a multiple access protocol, if the main network frequency is busy after performing step (c); (e) repeating steps (c) and (d) for a predefined number of time slots, unless or until an acknowledgement is received from the receiver node; (f) transmitting, by the sender node, the message on each backup frequency, using the multiple access protocol, unless or until an acknowledgment is received from the receiver node; and (g) performing an exponential backoff and subsequent transmission of the message, by the sender node, if an acknowledgement is still not received from the receiver node after performing steps (a) through (f).