Methods and apparatus related to scheduling in a wireless communications system using shared air link resources for traffic

A communication comprising:

• a monitoring module for detecting transmission requests sent by one or more other communication devices or connections during a current traffic in a peer-to-peer recurring timing structure of equal time intervals;
• a memory for storing information based on rate information of the communication device corresponding to a traffic interval;
• a retrieval module for accessing stored information based on rate information of the communication device obtained during a previous traffic interval in the recurring timing structure, said stored information including information indicating detected transmission requests from devices or connections of the one or more other communication devices or connections during the previous traffic interval;
• a transmission decision module for deciding whether or not to transmit with said communication device during the current traffic interval based on said stored information for the previous interval;
• and
• a transmission rate determination module for determining a transmission rate to be used by said communication device for transmission during the current traffic interval.

A communications device comprising:

• monitoring means for monitoring in said communications device to detect transmission requests sent by one or more other communication devices or connections during a current traffic interval in a peer-to-peer recurring timing structure of equal time intervals;
• memory means for storing information based on rate information of said communications device during a traffic interval;
• retrieval means for accessing stored information based on rate information of the communications device obtained during a previous traffic interval in the recurring timing structure, said stored information including information indicating detected transmission requests from devices or connections of the one or more other communication devices or connections during the previous traffic interval;
• transmission decision means for deciding whether or not to transmit with said communications device during the current traffic interval based on said stored information for the previous interval;
• and
• transmission rate determination means for determining a transmission rate to be used by said communication device for transmission during the current traffic interval.

A non-transitory computer readable medium embodying machine executable instructions for controlling a communication device to implement a communications method, the method comprising:

• monitoring in the communication device to detect transmission requests sent by one or more other communication devices or connections during a current traffic in a peer-to-peer recurring timing structure of equal time intervals;
• accessing stored information based on rate information of the communication device obtained during a previous traffic interval in the recurring timing structure, said stored information including information indicating detected transmission requests from devices or connections of the one or more other communication devices or connections during the previous traffic interval;
• deciding whether or not to transmit with the communication device during the current traffic interval based on said stored information for the previous traffic interval;
• and
• determining a transmission rate to be used by the communication device during the current traffic interval when the decision is made to transmit with the communication device during the current interval.

An apparatus comprising:

• a processor configured to implement a communications method, the method comprising:
• monitoring in the communication device to detect transmission requests sent by one or more other communication devices or connections during a current traffic interval in a peer-to-peer recurring timing structure of equal time intervals;
• accessing stored information based on rate information of the communication device obtained during a previous traffic interval in the recurring timing structure, said stored information including information indicating detected transmission requests from devices or connections of the one or more other communication devices or connections during the previous traffic interval;
• deciding whether or not to transmit with the communication device during the current traffic interval based on said stored information for the previous traffic interval;
• and
• determining a transmission rate to be used by the communication device during the current traffic interval when the decision is made to transmit with the communication device during the current interval.