Patent ID: 6859464

Claim:
A method for estimating an offered load of a shared communication channel in a communication network using a contention-based protocol, the shared channel transmitting a continuous stream of frames, each of the frames having a request interval, the request interval comprising a plurality of request transmission opportunities and usable by a plurality of users to transmit request messages, the request messages used to request access to the shared channel via the contention-based protocol, the method comprising: forming a contention outcome based on whether a user transmitted a request message in a request transmission opportunity, the contention outcome being an n-array outcome associated with each request transmission opportunity and based on a number of users in the shared medium communication network transmitting request messages in each request transmission opportunity within a predetermined contention interval, said number of users being of: zero; exactly one; exactly k, for k=2, . . . , n−2; and n−1 or more; collecting samples of contention outcomes from request transmission opportunities in a plurality of request intervals; forming a set of valid contention outcomes by applying a method of outlier control to the samples of contention outcomes; and estimating an offered load based on the set of valid contention outcomes.