Patent ID: 6904031

Claim:
A wireless telephone system, comprising: (a) a base unit having a base transceiver; and (b) a plurality of wireless handsets, each handset comprising a handset transceiver for establishing with the base unit via the base transceiver a time-division multiple access (TDMA) data link and a TDMA audio link, in accordance with a TDMA epoch allocating exclusive data and audio packet time slots to each handset, wherein the data link is for transmitting signaling information and the audio link is for transmitting voice data for a real-time telephone call, wherein the base unit, upon request from a handset for data from a data source, retrieves the requested data from the data source and transmits the retrieved data to the handset via the audio link, wherein: the epoch has a plurality of transmit and receive data row pairs, wherein each row pair comprises: an even row comprising a transmit data time slot for a respective handset and a plurality of transmit and receive audio packet time slots for a portion of the maximum number of the plurality of handsets which may be communicating at a time, and an odd row comprising a receive data time slot for the respective handset and a plurality of transmit and receive audio packet time slots for the other portion of the maximum number of the plurality of handsets which may be communicating at a time; and each handset receives and transmits data packets via the receive and transmit data packet slots only once during each epoch, during the transmit and receive data row pair for each said handset, and, if the handset is communicating with the base unit, each handset receives and transmits audio packets during respective transmit and receive audio packet time slots of each row pair of the epoch.