A technique is disclosed that enables both an IEEE 802.11 transceiver and
a Bluetooth transceiver to be employed in a single wireless
telecommunication station (e.g., a device supporting a wireless
telephone, personal digital assistant, etc.) without interfering on each
other. In particular, the illustrative embodiment enables standard
"off-the-shelf" IEEE 802.11 and Bluetooth transceivers to work in a
coordinated fashion in a single telecommunications terminal. In the
illustrative embodiment, a Bluetooth transceiver gains access to a
shared-communications channel from an IEEE 802.11 transceiver by
requesting access, even if the access is not immediate. The technique
disclosed is also applicable to communications protocols other than IEEE
802.11 and Bluetooth.