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, an IEEE 802.11 transceiver that uses a
shared-communications channel notifies a Bluetooth transceiver that a
transmit opportunity exists and that the Bluetooth transceiver has
permission to use the shared-communications channel. The technique
disclosed is also applicable to communications protocols other than IEEE
802.11 and Bluetooth.