Skip-correlation based symmetric carrier sensing with multiple power levels

A system, comprising:

• a first wireless communications device having a receiver configured to receive a preamble of a transmitter of a neighboring wireless communications device;
• the preamble including an indication of a transmission power level of the transmitter of the neighboring wireless communications device;
• the first wireless communications device further configured to automatically determine a variable carrier sensing threshold as a combined function of a transmission power level of a transmitter of the first wireless communications device and the transmission power level of the transmitter of the neighboring wireless communications device;
• and
• the first wireless communications device further configured to apply the variable carrier sensing threshold to implement carrier sensing symmetry between the first wireless communications device and the neighboring wireless communications device.

A wireless communications device comprising:

• a receiver configured to receive a transmission of a preamble from one or more neighboring transmitters;
• the wireless communications device configured to select and correlate a subset of samples of the received preamble as a function of a transmission power level of a transmitter of the wireless communications device;
• the wireless communications device further configured to compute a total preamble energy of the correlated samples of the preamble;
• and
• the wireless communications device further configured to apply the total preamble energy as a carrier sensing threshold to determine whether a wireless channel is free for transmissions by the transmitter of the wireless communications device.