Patent ID: 7173921

Claim:
A method of controlling a contention state for a communication link between a base station controller and customer premises equipment in point-to-multipoint communication, comprising the step of: controlling the contention state using a state machine with a plurality of states, the state machine including a grant pending absent state in which the customer premises equipment is polled with a unicast request slot, wherein during the grant pending absent state, the customer premises equipment sends no upstream data to the base station controller but can use the unicast request slot to request a data slot for sending upstream data to the base station controller, and a grant pending state in which the customer premises equipment awaits and receives grant of the data slot for sending upstream data to the base station controller and sends upstream data to the base station controller after grant of the data slot, wherein the state machine enters the grant pending absent state after the customer premises equipment has sent upstream data to the base station controller in the grant pending state.