Patent ID: 8199767

Claim:
A method comprising: operating a first access point among a plurality of access points, wherein the access points communicate over a wireline medium using a respective plurality of frequency channels, wherein each of the access points communicates over the wireline medium with a respective set of one or more stations using the respective frequency channel and using a wireless protocol, wherein a first of the access points includes a transmitter and a receiver both compliant to the wireless protocol, wherein said operating the first access point includes: the first access point sending a beacon and a schedule over said wireline medium to the respective set of one or more stations, wherein the schedule specifies an uplink phase followed by a downlink phase; the first access point receiving uplink information over the wireline medium from at least one of the one or more stations of the respective set during the uplink phase; the first access point moving ahead a start time of the downlink phase in response to (a) determining that the one or more stations of the respective set are done with sending uplink information to the first access point and (b) receiving signals from one or more other ones of the access points that their respective sets of stations are done with sending uplink information; the first access point moving ahead a time of transmission of a next beacon in response to (c) determining that there is no more downlink information to be sent from the first access point to the respective set of one or more stations and (d) receiving signals from the one or more other ones of the access points that they are done with sending downlink information to their respective sets of one or more stations.