Patent ID: 8654753

Claim:
An apparatus for communications, comprising: a transceiver; and a processing system configured to dynamically allocate a plurality of channels to one or more nodes prior to a data transmission from the transceiver to the one or more nodes, the transceiver being configured to exchange messages with the one or more nodes, and the processing system being further configured to dynamically allocate the channels to the one or more nodes in response to the exchanged messages, wherein: the transceiver is further configured to exchange the messages with the one or more nodes by sending a free channel request (FCR) containing a list of free channels seen by the apparatus to the one or more nodes on one of the free channels; the transceiver is further configured to exchange the messages with the one or more nodes by receiving a free channel list response (FCL) from each of the one or more nodes of one or more free channels seen by the node in response to the FCR; the processing system is further configured to embed, in the list of free channels seen by the apparatus, a time schedule for each of the one or more nodes to transmit a response; and the transceiver is further configured to transmit a request to send (RTS) message on each of the plurality of channels allocated to the one or more nodes after reception of the FCL from the nodes.