Patent ID: 7953060

Claim:
A method for communicating using a shared communication medium comprising: sending a request for a data traffic transmission opportunity, the shared communication medium organized to include a request signal space and a scheduled transmission signal space, the request signal space utilizing a set of code sequences each corresponding to a different location within the request signal space, the scheduled transmission signal space including a plurality of scheduled data transmission segments each having a different location within the scheduled transmission signal space, the request sent using a code sequence that is a member of the set of code sequences, each member characterized by an autocorrelation function having a peak centered at a zero time offset, each member further characterized by a cross correlation function defined with respect to each other member, the cross correlation function having a correlation window having a width and surrounding a zero time offset; receiving an assignment for assigning the request to the data traffic transmission opportunity in the scheduled transmission signal space, the assignment made in response to detecting the code sequence from a plurality of code sequences having relative timing offsets less than the width of the correlation window; and sending a data traffic transmission using the assigned data traffic transmission opportunity in the scheduled transmission signal space.