Patent attributes
The present invention relates to a communications network including transmitting stations and receiving stations for transmitting and receiving signals, the transmitting stations being adapted for transmitting a data signal as a series of data packets, wherein a data packet is scheduled to be transmitted by use of an available transmission resource, and receiving stations for transmitting a reservation indicator for reception by transmitting stations. In order to avoid transmission conflicts, in particular inter-cell conflicts in a cellular TDMA communications network, it is proposed that a reservation indicator transmitted by a receiving station carries a first reservation indicator value to indicate that a data transmission resource has been reserved by the receiving station for reception of the next data packet of a data signal from a transmitting station transmitting said data signal or a second reservation indicator value to indicate that a data transmission resource has not been reserved by the receiving station for reception of the next data packet from the transmitting station or that the last data packet has not been received with acceptable interference from the transmitting station, and wherein transmitting stations receiving a reservation indicator carrying a first reservation indicator value transmitted from a receiving station to which no data signal has been transmitted by them will not transmit a data packet by use of the reserved transmission resource.
