Collision mitigation for multicast transmission in wireless local area networks

Abstract

A method and apparatus are described including determining if a communications medium is idle; determining a time interval for a reservation of said communications medium; multicasting a message for reserving said communications medium; receiving responses to said message for reserving said communications medium; and determining if a number of said received responses compared to an expected number of responses exceeds a value; performing one of initiating pending frame exchanges and multicasting data or management frames during said time interval for said reservation of said communications medium if said comparison exceeds said value; repeating said first determining act if said comparison does not exceed said value. Also described are a method and apparatus including receiving a message for a reservation of a communications medium; determining if said message specifies a receiver of the message in a list of receivers from which a response is requested; determining if said communications medium is idle; determining a time period in which to transmit said response responsive to an order in said list, wherein said list of receivers is one of a reply list of receiver addresses and a combination of a bitmap control field and a partial virtual bitmap; and transmitting said response to said message responsive to said second determination.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.