A scheme for wireless local area networks provides multimedia extensions
for high rate applications. Some of the main extensions provided are the
following: The MAC header is extended to include the components for
multimedia support. The network topology extensions include tighter
definition of the PC, peer-peer connections during CFP, alternate PC and
proxy PC. The Quality of Service (QoS) related extensions include the
simplifying the operation during CFP, support of streams, stream priority,
synchronization of TDM transmissions by devices during CFP, dynamic
bandwidth management, channel protection using error control coding and
negotiable retransmission parameters. By dynamically negotiating for the
priority, bandwidth and the retransmission parameters for each stream
separately, the latency control is achieved. There are also proposed
extensions to the operation of DCF-only stations in order to better their
inter-operation with multimedia capable devices.
