Keep alive timeslots in a heterogeneous MAC protocol to track handsets in a wireless network

• US 20090310575A1
• Filed: 05/07/2009
• Published: 12/17/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/16/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Vislink Technologies, Inc.
• Original Assignee: xG Technology, Inc.
• Inventors: Chang, Shih-Chun, Gandham, Shashidhar R.
• Granted Patent: US 8,274,955 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/337
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 60/02 by periodical registration
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/25 Maintenance of established connections
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 80/02 Data link layer protocols

Abstract

This disclosure describes a new keep alive timeslots based method to track registered handsets for a MAC protocol that combines contention-free and contention-based MAC protocols into a heterogeneous MAC protocol used for forwarding VoIP traffic in VoIP systems on wireless networks using multiple base stations thus allowing for transmission of high bit-rate data to multiple users over wired and wireless means.

Claims

1. A keep alive timeslot method for a medium access control protocol used for forwarding Internet Protocol packets between a base station and nodes in voice over the Internet protocol systems on a wired or wireless network comprising:

A base station in electrical communication with the Internet;

one or more nodes in wired or wireless electrical communication with said base station;

said base station and said one or more nodes each having a medium access control protocol;

said medium access control protocol having superframes containing headers that contain time slots dedicated to keep alive messages between said base station and said one or more nodes that indicate said base station should continue to service said one or more nodes;

wherein when each of said one or more nodes turns on it scans for base stations in said one or more nodes'"'"' electrical communication range and sends a registration message to a base station indicating that said base station will service said one or more nodes;

wherein said base station assigns a unique keep alive time slot to each of said one or more nodes that sent a registration message to said base station up to a maximum number keep alive time slots which is less than the number of superframes; and

,

wherein each of said one or more nodes sends keep alive messages only when determined by a superframe number such that some of said keep alive timeslots can be used for other messages when not sending keep alive messages.

2. The keep alive timeslot method of claim 1 wherein a control element contained in said header is used to dynamically adjust said keep alive timeslots.

3. The keep alive timeslot method of claim 1 wherein a skipping announcement contained in said header is used by said base station to skip said keep alive timeslots that are no longer being used when said one or more nodes have deregistered from said base station.