SYSTEM FOR DETERMINING THE FREQUENCY OF REPETITIONS OF POLLING ACTIVE STATIONS RELATIVE TO THE POLLING OF INACTIVE STATIONS

摘要

An apparatus and method to implement a hybrid contention and polling protocolfor a communications or computer network is disclosed. Various apparatus andmethod embodiments of the invention employ specific polls (116) from a primarystation for polling identified secondary stations of the network which may bein an active state, general polls (124, 304) to any of a plurality ofsecondary stations of the network which may be in an unresponsive state toinitiate contention access to the network, and general polls for collisionresolution (318) in the event that a plurality of secondary stations maysimultaneously contend for network access. Various embodiments may alsoinclude frequency channel allocation for transmission and reception of dataand other information within the network. The various procedures and apparatusdisclosed may also be used to apply various polling parameters to optimizenetwork performance.