Patent ID: 7570634

Claim:
A node responsive to a TDMA protocol, comprising: a transceiver; and at least one processor cooperatively operable with the transceiver, and configured to facilitate receiving at least one frame to be transmitted in a communication over the transceiver, wherein the at least one frame indicates a priority relative to other frames; queuing the at least one frame in one queue of a plurality of queues, responsive to the priority, wherein each of the queues in the plurality of queues correspond to at least one different priority of a plurality of priorities; and servicing the plurality of queues including processing the at least one frame in the one queue, wherein each of the queues is associated with a particular time slot of the communication, and wherein the at least one processor is further configured to facilitate transmitting frames in a selected queue via an isochronous time slot if the selected queue corresponds to a high priority; and transmitting the frames in the selected queue via an asynchronous time slot if the selected queue corresponds to a low priority.