Slot synchronization for stations in overlapping basic service sets

Abstract

Described herein are systems and methods for reducing collisions in a wireless network with overlapping basic service sets by synchronizing contention slots among stations (access points or non-access point clients), some of which are out of range, competing for the use of the wireless medium. In some embodiments, the contention slots of competing stations are synchronized by controlling the time of transmission and the time of the spacing between frames to be an integer multiple of the time of a contention slot. In some embodiments, slot boundaries are enforced by controlling guard intervals or by trigger-based uplink communications. In other embodiments, a central network controller, such as a network controller, synchronizes slots when an access point or station joins the wireless network or uses a neighbor discovery protocol among access points. The contention slots are synchronous in all cases throughout the overlapping basic service sets.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.