Medium access control layer that encapsulates data from a plurality of received data units into a plurality of independently transmittable blocks

• Main Authors: BLANCHARD BART W, EARNSHAW WILLIAM EDWARD, GARGRAVE TIMOTHY R, KATAR SRINIVAS, YONGE, III LAWRENCE WINSTON, KOSTOFF, II STANLEY JOSEPH
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 21.04.2015
• Subjects: CALCULATING; COMPUTING; COUNTING; ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE; ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING; ELECTRICITY; MULTIPLEX COMMUNICATION; PHYSICS; TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHICCOMMUNICATION

A method of operating in a network in which a plurality of stations communicate over a shared medium, comprising providing a physical layer (e.g., PHY) for handling physical communication over the shared medium; providing a high level layer (e.g., PAL) that receives data from the station and supplies high level data units (e.g., MSDUs) for transmission over the medium; providing a MAC layer that receives the high level data units from the high level layer and supplies low level data units (e.g., MPDUs) to the physical layer; at the MAC layer, encapsulating content from a plurality of the high level data units; dividing the encapsulated content into a plurality of pieces (e.g., segments) with each piece capable of being independently retransmitted; and supplying low level data units containing one or more of the plurality of pieces.