Patent ID: 8259668

Claim:
A transmission method for use in a multi-hop wireless communication system, the system comprising a source apparatus, a destination apparatus and one or more intermediate apparatuses, said source apparatus being operable to transmit information in a communication direction along a series of links forming a communication path extending from the source apparatus to the destination apparatus via the or each intermediate apparatus, and the or each intermediate apparatus being operable to receive information from a previous apparatus along the path and to transmit the received information to a subsequent apparatus along the path, a time-frequency format being used for transmission in the system, with a plurality of transmission windows included within transmission period, the method comprising: transmitting reservation information for use in a particular such transmission period from a first one of said apparatuses to a second one of said apparatuses, the second apparatus being the or one of the intermediate apparatuses, and the reservation information specifying at least one transmission window to be reserved of the particular transmission period; and in the second apparatus, reserving the specified window(s) of the particular transmission period in dependence upon the received reservation information; the method further comprising: as a result of the reserving in the second apparatus or in the plurality of intermediate apparatuses, not transmitting from that or those apparatuses in the specified window(s) of the particular transmission period so that that or those apparatuses will not interfere with other transmissions occurring during the specified window(s); or as a result of the reserving in the second apparatus or in the plurality of intermediate apparatuses, transmitting non-information-carrying signals from that or those apparatuses in the specified window(s) of the particular transmission period.