Techniques for periodic transmission of communications packets

A non-transitory computer-readable medium carrying one or more sequences of instructions, wherein execution of the one or more sequences of instructions by one or more processors causes the one or more processors to perform the steps of:

• retrieving from storage a plurality of policies for sharing a shared channel among nodes in a data communications network using a particular protocol, the plurality of polices defining a tree of periodic schedules of variable periods, each policy defining a transmit time slot as a unique slot i of a modulus of a power m of a base b of a series of time slots, where m indicates a level of the tree of periodic schedules;
• observing at a first node the probabilities of empty time slots and successful time slots and collision time slots on the shared channel;
• selecting at the first node in the data communications network a first policy among the plurality of policies based on the probabilities observed instead of a message received from a central authority;
• and
• transmitting a local data packet from the first node onto the shared channel at a transmit time based on the first policy.

An apparatus comprising:

• at least one processor;
• a network connection;
• and
• at least one memory including one or more sequences of instructions,
• the at least one memory and the one or more sequences of instructions configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus to perform at least the following,
• retrieving from storage a plurality of policies for sharing a shared channel among nodes in a data communications network using a particular protocol, the plurality of polices defining a tree of periodic schedules of variable periods, each policy defining a transmit time slot as a unique slot i of a modulus of a power m of a base b of a series of time slots, where m indicates a level of the tree of periodic schedules;
• observing at a first node the probabilities of empty time slots and successful time slots and collision time slots on the shared channel;
• selecting at the first node in the data communications network a first policy among the plurality of policies based on the probabilities observed instead of a message received from a central authority;
• and
• transmitting a local data packet from the first node onto the shared channel at a transmit time based on the first policy.