Patent ID: 7974232

Claim:
A distributed communication network comprising: a set of wireless communication nodes including a subset of repeating nodes, wherein each of said nodes in said set is adapted to communicate using a frame based protocol including multiple time slots; each of said repeating nodes comprises: a communication module adapted to receive and to retransmit a communication transmitted by another node, such that during a single communication frame said communication module is adapted to retransmit a transmission originating from only a selected transmission source, and the selected transmission source changes from frame to frame; a synchronization module adapted to synchronize timing on said communication module such that all the repeating nodes have synchronized timing; and wherein upon receiving a communication from a selected source during a given frame and timeslot, directly or through a repeating node, said communication module is adapted to allocate two or more subsequent timeslots of the given frame for retransmission of the communication, such that at least two repeating nodes receiving the same communication during a timeslot of the given frame will repeat the received transmission during at least two other timeslots of the given frame.