Patent ID: 8681612

Claim:
An access terminal, comprising: a communications interface adapted to facilitate wireless communications; and a processing circuit coupled to the communications interface, the processing circuit adapted to: receive a first frame via the communications interface, the first frame specifying a time period during which the access terminal is to refrain from transmitting on a shared transmission channel, wherein the time period coincides with an interval during which associated access terminals are instructed to also refrain from transmitting on the shared transmission channel and legacy and non-associated access terminals are permitted to transmit on the shared transmission channel, wherein the first frame includes a network allocation vector for associated access terminals field (NAT field) indicating that a network allocation vector (NAV) is to be set only at associated access terminals, and wherein the time period is repeatedly activated according to a predefined timing schedule to not exceed a maximum latency requirement; and stop transmitting on the shared transmission channel for the specified time period upon receipt of the first frame.