Patent ID: 7653003

Claim:
A method of medium access control among nodes in a wireless network, comprising: synchronizing nodes on a wireless channel of the wireless network to a common time; dividing a wireless channel into transmission slots; establishing a plurality of signaling phases on the wireless channel at the beginning of a transmission slot, wherein each of the plurality of signaling phases is associated with a signaling process selected from the group consisting of a first to assert signaling process and a last to assert signaling process, and wherein each of the plurality of signaling phases comprises one or more signaling slots; synchronizing transmission of access signals of contending nodes relative to the signaling phases, wherein each of the contending nodes comprises a packet to send and wherein each of the contending nodes contends simultaneously for access to the wireless channel; determining surviving nodes of a signaling phase among the contending nodes by applying the signaling process associated with the signaling phase to the access signals transmitted by the contending nodes; determining ultimate surviving nodes of a channel access attempt among the surviving nodes by identifying the surviving nodes of each of the plurality of signaling phases among the contending nodes; and authorizing the ultimate surviving nodes to transmit packets.