Patent ID: 8077665

Claim:
A method of determining a contention window for allocating bandwidth in a wireless network comprising a plurality of nodes, said nodes comprising a plurality of routers and at least one client connected to each of said routers, the network further comprising a bandwidth source, the method comprising: (i) receiving information at a first of said plurality of routers from each of the other routers, said information comprising the total number of hops from each of the other routers to the bandwidth source, the total number of clients connected to each of the other routers, the requested throughput of each client connected to each of the other routers, and the number of hops between the first router and each of the other routers; (ii) calculating a contention window for said first router based on the received information; and (iii) setting the delay for a retransmission of data by the first router to the calculated contention window, wherein the retransmission of data follows an unsuccessful transmission of said data.