Apparatus for multicast transmissions in wireless local area networks

US8737281B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• Thomson Licensing · FR

Inventors

• Hang Liu · North Potomac, US
• Ishan Mandrekar · Monmouth Junction, US
• Minquan Wu · Princeton Junction, US
• Ramkumar Perumanam · Carmel, US
• Saurabh Mathur · Danville, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Jun 27, 2008
• Grant date: May 27, 2014
• Expiry date: Dec 8, 2028

Classification

• Technology area (CPC H): Electricity
• CPC primary: H04W84/12
• WIPO field: Digital communication
• WIPO sector: Electrical engineering

Abstract

Message formats and apparatus are described that serve to reserve access to a communication medium in a multi-cast system. A first message, a multicast request-to-send message, includes a duration field having information representing the reserved time for a communication medium, a multicast receiver address field, a multicast transmitter address field, a field that identifies the number of slots for a clear-to-send response, and a field that identifies the number slots for a not-clear-to-send response. A second message includes a duration field, and a multicast receive address field. The second message has a format that can be used as one of a clear-to-send message in response to a multicast request-to-send message, a cancel-clear-to-send message that cancels a data transmission after the clear-to-send message is sent, and a not-clear-to-send message in response to the multicast request-to-send message.