Method and apparatus for accommodating high bandwidth data traffic on a wireless network

摘要

A low data rate wireless channel (control channel) is associated with a high speed broadcast mode wireless channel (data channel). The data channel is divided into discrete code or time slots (access slots), that are unassigned to any particular recipient until requested. If a particular user requires a particular resource, access slots are requested through the control channel, allocated to the user, and allocation information is passed back to the requesting user through the control channel. By diverting setup and control traffic to the control channel, capacity on the data channel can be freed up to enable the high-speed data channel to be dedicated to transmission of high-bandwidth traffic. Thus, scarce high-bandwidth resources can be utilized to the full extent to reduce the probability of time slots not being utilized due to scheduling conflicts and without requiring transmissions to stop to perform housekeeping functions between transmissions.