Wireless access protocol with collaborative spectrum monitoring

An electronic device, comprising:

• one or more nodes configured to communicatively couple to an antenna;
• and
• an interface circuit, communicatively coupled to the one or more nodes, configured to communicate with an access point over a channel of a communications medium associated with a wireless local area network (WLAN);
• and
• a processing subsystem, communicatively coupled to the interface circuit, configured to cause the electronic device to:
• receive a request from the access point to collect channel information for at least one additional channel associated with the communications medium;
• measure a signal metric associated with each additional channel in the at least one additional channel;
• populate the signal metric for each additional channel in the at least one additional channel into a data structure to generate the channel information;
• select a modulation and coding scheme (MCS) to use to transmit the channel information during an allocated transmission opportunity based on a duration of the transmission opportunity and historical information related to success of failure of previous transmissions;
• and
• transmit the channel information to the access point during the allocated transmission opportunity.

A method for managing a wireless local area network (WLAN), the method comprising:

• via a processing subsystem of an access point:
• monitoring a portion of a radio frequency spectrum to detect a power associated with one or more channels associated with the WLAN while the one or more channels are inactive;
• selecting an optimum channel within the radio frequency spectrum utilized to communicate with at least one electronic device connected to the WLAN;
• configuring an interface circuit of the access point to communicate with the at least one electronic device via the optimum channel;
• selecting a second channel in the radio frequency spectrum based, at least in part, on channel information collected by one or more electronic devices connected to WLAN;
• and
• re-configuring the interface circuit of the access point to communicate with the at least one electronic device via the second channel,
• wherein:
• the access point communicates with the one or more electronic devices via scheduled communication during contention-free periods separated by quiet periods to share the communications medium with other WLANs;
• and
• the one or more electronic devices each select a modulation and coding scheme (MCS) to use to transmit uplink data to the access point during a respective allocated transmission opportunity based on a duration of the transmission opportunity and historical information related to success or failure of previous transmissions.