CONTENTION-BASED MEDIUM RESERVATION METHODS AND APPARATA FOR MULTICAST TRANSMISSIONS IN WIRELESS LOCAL AREA NETWORKS

A method and apparatus are described including multicasting a medium reservation message and receiving a response to the medium reservation message. Also described are a method and apparatus including receiving a medium reservation message, determining if a medium is idle and transmitting a response to the medium reservation message responsive to the determination. Further described are a method and apparatus including receiving a medium reservation message, determining if a received network allocation vector in the medium reservation message has a value greater than a current network allocation vector, determining if transmission over a medium during a time interval is detected and resetting the current network allocation vector responsive to the determination of transmission. Yet further described are a method and apparatus including receiving a response to a medium reservation message, determining if a network allocation vector in the response is greater than a current network allocation vector and updating the current network allocation vector responsive to the determination.