Patent ID: 8830837

Claim:
A method, comprising: detecting indicia of congestion at a receiving node in a computer network; identifying a set of neighbor nodes to the receiving node; assigning at least one scheduled transmission timeslot to each neighbor node of the set, with the transmission timeslot of at least one neighbor node being assigned based on the detected indicia of congestion, each neighbor node being allowed to transmit synchronously with other neighbor nodes of the set only during each neighbor node's respective timeslot; transmitting the assigned timeslots to the set of neighbor nodes; setting a length of time for which the assigned timeslots are to be used; in response to expiration of the length of time, transmitting a schedule clearing packet to instruct the neighbor nodes to no longer use the assigned timeslots; receiving notification from a particular neighbor node that the particular neighbor node does not need its particular assigned timeslot; and in response to receiving the notification from the particular neighbor node, allowing the particular assigned timeslot to be assigned to other neighbor nodes of the set.