Patent ID: 8300612

Claim:
A medium access control (MAC) method for a wireless local area network (WLAN), comprising: forming a first superframe of a shared channel, wherein the first superframe comprises a plurality of downlinks, a plurality of uplinks, and a plurality of short uplinks, and wherein a total number of the plurality of downlinks is equal to a total number of the plurality of uplinks; transmitting a bandwidth schedule report (BSR) frame to a plurality of terminals, wherein the BSR frame is transmitted via a first downlink in the plurality of downlinks in the first superframe, and wherein the BSR frame identifies which of the uplinks and downlinks in the first superframe are allocated to which of the terminals; receiving a bandwidth request (BR) frame from a first terminal in the plurality of terminals, wherein the BR frame comprises a request for bandwidth allocation for the first terminal in a second superframe of the shared channel, and wherein the BR frame is received via one of the short uplinks in the first superframe; allocating bandwidth in the second superframe to the first terminal in response to the receiving the BR frame; transmitting a second BSR frame to the plurality of terminals, wherein the second BSR frame is transmitted via a first downlink in the second superframe, and wherein the second BSR frame identifies which of uplinks and downlinks in the second superframe are allocated to which of the terminals; and transmitting data frames and an acknowledge frame to one or more of the terminals, wherein the data frames and the acknowledge frame are transmitted via one or more allocated downlinks in the second superframe.