Patent ID: 6987770

Claim:
A method of frame forwarding for use in a CSMA network of stations connected to a shared medium, in which stations contend for access to a network by sensing whether other stations are transmitting on the shared medium, comprising: preparing by a first station as a first frame a frame intended for a second station to be sent to an intermediate station for forwarding to the second station as a second frame, the frame including a delimiter and the delimiter including control information to be heard by other stations in the network for controlling the timing of the frame forwarding; and causing the frame to be transmitted as the first frame to the intermediate station and the intermediate station to modify the frame by changing the control information prior to transmitting the modified frame as the second frame to the second station, wherein the delimiter includes one or more contention-control fields giving the intermediate station the ability under some circumstances to transmit the second frame immediately without contending for access to the network, and wherein the second frame is either transmitted immediately or discarded by the intermediate station, without being stored in a buffer for later transmission.