Patent ID: 8818293

Claim:
A method, comprising: first monitoring, by a wireless access point, a first utilization measure of a channel, said first monitoring including an identification of a portion of time during a first time period that said first monitoring detects energy on said channel; second monitoring, by said wireless access point, during a second time period, a second utilization measure of said channel by a plurality of mobile stations associated with said wireless access point, said second monitoring including an identification of a portion of time during a second time period that said second monitoring detects data traffic being sent by said wireless access point to said plurality of mobile stations or received by said wireless access point from said mobile stations; determining an availability of said channel based on said first utilization measure and said second utilization measure; and distributing said determined availability of said channel amongst said plurality of mobile stations, wherein said distributing comprises assigning, by said wireless access point, a separate counter to each of said plurality of mobile stations, said counters being used to monitor a level of use of said channel by each of plurality of mobile stations.