MANAGING COMMUNICATIONS OVER A SHARED MEDIUM

摘要

Communicating between stations over a shared medium includes: monitoring the shared medium for signals received at a first station that is identified with a local network; storing information at the first station that represents characteristics of the signals received at the first station associated with capacity of the shared medium; monitoring the shared medium for signals received at a second station that is identified with the same local network as the first station; storing information at the second station that represents characteristics of the signals received at the second station associated with capacity of the shared medium; and determining whether a stream of data is allowed to be transmitted over the shared medium between the first station and the second station based on at least one of the stored information from the first station and the stored information from the second station.