Cooperative distributed scheduling for device-to-device (d2d) communication

A method comprising:

• transmitting, from a first user equipment (UE) device to a second UE device, data over a device-to-device (D2D) communication link while operating in a resource contention mode;
• transmitting a preferred transmission indicator the preferred transmission indicator having one of at least two values comprising an active value and an inactive value and having the active value when at least one of:
• a data buffer size at the first UE device has exceeded a threshold, the first UE device is a public safety UE device, and data for transmission from the first UE device requires a minimum quality of service (QoS).

A wireless communication user equipment device (UE device) comprising:

• a receiver configured to receive a preferred transmission indicator from another user equipment (UE) device, the preferred transmission indicator having one of at least two values comprising an active value and an inactive value and having the active value when at least one of:
• a data buffer size at the another UE device has exceeded a threshold, the another UE device is a public safety UE device, and data for transmission from the another UE device requires a minimum quality of service (QoS);
• a transmitter configured to transmit data over a device-to-device (D2D) communication link while operating in a resource contention mode, the transmitter configured to, in response to receiving the active preferred transmission indicator, refrain from transmitting the data for a delay time period.