Managing transmissions among nodes communicating over a shared communication medium

A system, comprising:

• a sender node, communicating with two or more receiver nodes in a network, the sender node configured to:
• transmit a frame to the two or more receiver nodes in the network, the frame including at least a portion of a data packet and control information associated with accessing a communication medium;
• define a time window commencing after the data packet of the transmitted frame, the time window allocating a time period for receiving two or more acknowledgement signals, wherein the time window includes two or more time slots, a first time slot within the time window separated from the data packet by an inter-frame gap period and each time slot separated from other time slots by the inter-frame gap period;
• assign each time slot in the time window to one or more receiver nodes in the network;
• and
• receive an acknowledgement signal from the one or more receiver nodes in the network during the time slot assigned to the one or more receiver nodes, wherein the acknowledgement signal is responsive to the transmitted frame.

A communication node, comprising:

• a network interface coupled to a shared communication medium, the network interface configured to transmit and receive data through the shared communication medium;
• a transmitter coupled to the network interface, the transmitter configured to:
• transmit a frame of data, the frame including at least a portion of a data packet and control information associated with accessing the shared communication medium, and
• define a time window commencing after the data packet, the time window allocating a time period for receiving two or more acknowledgement signals from a plurality of communication nodes coupled to the shared communication medium, wherein the time window includes two or more time slots, a first time slot within the time window separated from the data packet by an inter-frame gap period and each time slot separated from other time slots by the inter-frame gap period;
• and
• a receiver coupled to the network interface, the receiver configured to receive data transmitted from the plurality of communication nodes.