Patent ID: 8675623

Claim:
A method of contending on a contention channel for transmission access to a portion of a television channel spectrum, comprising: randomly selecting a contention value from a predetermined set of contention values; defining a set of possible back-off values, including calculating one of said possible back-off values based on the selected contention value; selecting a back-off value from the set of possible back-off values; determining whether the contention channel is available for transmission of the selected contention value; and in response to a determination that the contention channel is available, using the selected back-off value to decide whether to transmit the selected contention value on the contention channel; wherein the contention values represent contention priorities, wherein the selected back-off value is inversely related to the contention priority associated with the selected contention value, and wherein said using includes providing a relatively higher transmission priority to a selected contention value having a relatively lower associated back-off value.