Patent ID: 8787272

Claim:
A method comprising: collecting information about distributed reservation availabilities of devices in a wireless network that uses a medium access control (MAC) protocol; selecting a group of shared devices to be included in a group shared distributed reservation based on the collected information; sending a reservation request to each device in the group of shared devices; updating the group of shared devices to include only devices that accept the reservation request; allocating as a reservation block at least first and second time-contiguous medium access slots during each of which one of more of the shared devices in said group can transmit data in accordance with a group shared distributed reservation protocol, the medium access slots being as defined by the MAC protocol; and transmitting data frames in the reservation block from a transmitting device to a receiving device through at least one forwarding device in the group of shared devices, the transmitting being carried out for the data frames in succession without an idle period prior to the end of the at least first time-contiguous medium access slot of said reservation block and without waiting for a start of the at least second time-contiguous medium access slot at its boundary with the at least first time-contiguous medium access slot.