Patent ID: 8422450

Claim:
A method, said method comprising: initializing said slot count; decrementing said slot count when a communication medium is idle; transmitting data, by a terminal over a shared contention-based wireless communication medium using a media access control protocol, if a slot count is equal to a triggering event, wherein said slot count is a count of a number of time slots in a back-off cycle and wherein said back-off cycle has a fixed number of said time slots and wherein said triggering event is one of a possible plurality of transmission opportunities for said terminal and wherein said back-off window is fixed; selecting a random number if said data transmission was not successful; comparing said random number to a threshold; selecting a new triggering event responsive to a failed data transmission, wherein said new triggering event is selected based on said comparison; replacing said triggering event with said new triggering event; and reusing said triggering event in a subsequent back-off cycles responsive to a successful data transmission, said successful data transmission is a data transmission that was acknowledged in a previous back-off cycle.