Patent ID: 7876701

Claim:
A method of operating a first device for facilitating communications with a plurality of devices including a second and a third devices within a peer-to-peer network, the first device having a first connection with the second device and a second connection with the third device, the method comprising: monitoring to receive a first transmission request signal from the second device in a connection scheduling channel slot, the first transmission request signal indicating that the second device intends to transmit a traffic signal to the first device in a subsequent traffic channel slot; monitoring to receive interfering transmission request signals from interfering transmitter devices in the connection scheduling channel slot, the interfering transmission request signal indicating that the interfering transmitter devices intend to transmit traffic signals to receiver devices other than the first device in the subsequent traffic channel slot; calculating a signal-to-interference ratio of the first transmission request signal, the signal-to-interference ratio being the ratio of a predicted signal power to a predicted interference power, the predicted signal power being determined as a function of the received power of the first transmission request signal, and the predicted interference power being determined as a function of the received powers of the interfering transmission request signals; and restraining from transmitting a request response signal to the second device if the calculated signal-to-interference ratio is less than or equal to a threshold.