Patent ID: 8130732

Claim:
A system for providing quality of service driven channel access within a basic service set in a wireless network, the system comprising: a) a point coordinator station within the basic service set sending a contention control frame in a contention-free period of a superframe that also includes a contention period, the contention control frame containing: a1) information relating to a number of available centralized contention opportunities for receiving a reservation request non-data frame in a centralized contention interval following the contention control frame, and a2) information identifying stations from which a reservation request non-data frame was successfully received by the point coordinator station in a preceding centralized contention interval, and b) a non point coordinator station in the basic service set, receiving the contention control frame and sending a reservation request non-data frame in a selected one of the available centralized contention opportunities in the centralized contention interval in response to the received contention control frame, each reservation request non-data frame being sent when the corresponding non point coordinator station has a burst of data frames to send, each reservation request non-data frame indicating an amount of bandwidth requested by the non-point coordinator station sending the reservation request non-data frame for transmitting the burst of data frames.