WO2025244661A1 - Coordinated spatial reuse with open medium sharing - Google Patents

Abstract

This disclosure provides methods, components, devices and systems for coordinated spatial reuse (CSR) with open medium sharing. Some aspects more specifically relate to flexible sharing of wireless mediums among multiple access points (APs) in a wireless network. In some examples, a first AP may perform a channel access procedure to obtain access to a wireless medium. The CSR configuration information may include one or more rules to enable concurrent communication via the wireless medium during the one or more reuse periods. The one or more rules may indicate parameters and procedures used by other APs to share the wireless medium during the indicated reuse periods.

Description

COORDINATED SPATIAL REUSE WITH OPEN MEDIUM SHARING

CROSS REFERENCES

[0001] The present Application for Patent claims priority to Indian Patent Application No. 202441040492 by Helwa et al., entitled ‘COORDINATED SPATIAL REUSE WITH OPEN MEDIUM SHARING,” filed May 24, 2024, which is assigned to the assignee hereof and which is expressly incorporated herein.

TECHNICAL FIELD

[0002] This disclosure relates generally to wireless communication and, more specifically, to coordinated spatial reuse (CSR) with open medium sharing.

DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED TECHNOLOGY

[0003] Wireless communication networks may include various types of wireless communication devices including network entities (such as wireless access points (AP) or base stations (BS)), client devices (such as wireless stations (STAs) or user equipment (UEs)), and other wireless nodes. These wireless communication devices may communicate with one another via a variety of technologies and wireless communication protocols, including wireless local area network (WLAN) or Wi-Fi- based protocols or cellular (such as 4G, 5G, or 6G)-based protocols. The wireless communication networks may be capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (such as time, frequency, and spatial resources). To enable features or provide improved performance, the wireless communication devices may employ technologies such as orthogonal frequency divisional multiple access (OFDMA), multi-user Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MU- MIMO), spatial multiplexing, and beamforming. For greater mter-operabilily. the wireless communication networks may support backwards compatibility (such as supporting legacy wireless communication devices) as well as forward compatibility (such as supporting communication with wireless communication devices compatible with next-generation wireless communication standards). SUMMARY

[0004] The systems, methods, and devices of this disclosure each have several innovative aspects, no single one of which is solely responsible for the desirable attributes disclosed herein.

[0005] One innovative aspect of the subject matter described in this disclosure can be implemented in a method for wireless communications by a sharing access point. The method may include performing a channel access procedure to obtain access to a wireless communication channel and transmitting coordinated spatial reuse configuration information indicating one or more rules to enable concurrent communication via the wireless communication channel during at least a portion of one or more reuse periods.

[0006] Another innovative aspect of the subject matter described in this disclosure can be implemented in a sharing access point for wireless communications. The sharing access point may include a processing system that includes processor circuitry and memory circuitry that stores code. The processing system may be configured to cause the sharing access point to perform a channel access procedure to obtain access to a wireless communication channel and transmit coordinated spatial reuse configuration information indicating one or more rules to enable concurrent communication via the wireless communication channel during at least a portion of one or more reuse periods.

[0007] Another innovative aspect of the subject matter described in this disclosure can be implemented in a sharing access point for wireless communications. The sharing access point may include means for performing a channel access procedure to obtain access to a wireless communication channel and means for transmitting coordinated spatial reuse configuration information indicating one or more rules to enable concurrent communication via the wireless communication channel during at least a portion of one or more reuse periods.

[0008] Another innovative aspect of the subject matter described in this disclosure can be implemented in a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing code for wireless communications. The code may include instructions executable by one or more processors to perform a channel access procedure to obtain access to a wireless communication channel and transmit coordinated spatial reuse configuration information indicating one or more rules to enable concurrent communication via the wireless communication channel during at least a portion of one or more reuse periods.

[0009] In some examples of the method, sharing access points, and non-transitory computer-readable medium described herein, the coordinated spatial reuse configuration information further indicates the one or more reuse periods that the sharing access point may be sharing access to the wireless communication channel. In some examples of the method, sharing access points, and non-transitory computer-readable medium described herein, the coordinated spatial reuse configuration information is transmitted before, during, or after the channel access procedure.

[0010] In some examples of the method, sharing access points, and non-transitory computer-readable medium described herein, the one or more rules includes an indication of a signal strength threshold associated with eligibility for a wireless device and the sharing access point to concurrently transmit within the one or more reuse periods. In some examples, the one or more rules indicate that one or more shared access points may be to perform a contention procedure prior to accessing to the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods and the method, apparatuses, and non-transitory computer-readable medium may include further operations, features, means, or instructions for performing one or more frame exchanges with one or more stations during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with the one or more rules. In some examples, the one or more rules indicate to transmit a request over the wireless communication channel and to receive a response in accordance with the request prior to attempting to access the wireless communication channel and the one or more rules indicate that the one or more shared access points may be to decode a request, a response, or both associated with one or more other access points to determine whether to attempt to access the wireless communication channel, the determination based on an address field of the request, an address field of the response, a received signal strength indicator of the request, a received signal strength indicator of the response, or any combination thereof.

[0011] In some examples, the one or more rules indicate that the one or more shared access points may be to transmit a self-request message indicating that access may have been obtained to the wireless communication channel prior to transmission of a message via the wireless communication channel. [0012] One innovative aspect of the subject matter described in this disclosure can be implemented in a method for wireless communications by a shared access point. The method may include receiving, from a sharing access point, coordinated spatial reuse configuration information indicating one or more rules to enable concurrent communication via a wireless communication channel during at least a portion of one or more reuse periods, performing a channel access procedure to access the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods in accordance with the one or more rules, and performing one or more frame exchanges with one or more stations associated with the shared access point over the wireless communication channel during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with successfully accessing the wireless communication channel via the channel access procedure.

[0013] Another innovative aspect of the subject matter described in this disclosure can be implemented in a shared access point for wireless communications. The shared access point may include a processing system that includes processor circuitry and memory circuitry that stores code. The processing system may be configured to cause the shared access point to receive, from a sharing access point, coordinated spatial reuse configuration information indicating one or more rules to enable concurrent communication via a wireless communication channel during at least a portion of one or more reuse periods, perform a channel access procedure to access the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods in accordance with the one or more rules, and perform one or more frame exchanges with one or more stations associated with the shared access point over the wireless communication channel during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with successfully accessing the wireless communication channel via the channel access procedure.

[0014] Another innovative aspect of the subject matter described in this disclosure can be implemented in a shared access point for wireless communications. The shared access point may include means for receiving, from a sharing access point, coordinated spatial reuse configuration information indicating one or more rules to enable concurrent communication via a wireless communication channel during at least a portion of one or more reuse periods, means for performing a channel access procedure to access the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods in accordance with the one or more rules, and means for performing one or more frame exchanges with one or more stations associated with the shared access point over the wireless communication channel during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with successfully accessing the wireless communication channel via the channel access procedure.

[0015] Another innovative aspect of the subject matter described in this disclosure can be implemented in a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing code for wireless communications. The code may include instructions executable by one or more processors to receive, from a sharing access point, coordinated spatial reuse configuration information indicating one or more rules to enable concurrent communication via a wireless communication channel during at least a portion of one or more reuse periods, perform a channel access procedure to access the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods in accordance with the one or more rules, and perform one or more frame exchanges with one or more stations associated with the shared access point over the wireless communication channel during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with successfully accessing the wireless communication channel via the channel access procedure.

[0016] In some examples of the method, shared access points, and non-transitory computer-readable medium described herein, the coordinated spatial reuse configuration information further indicates the one or more reuse periods that the sharing access point may be sharing access to the wireless communication channel.

[0017] In some examples of the method, shared access points, and non-transitor ' computer-readable medium described herein, the one or more rules includes an indication of a signal strength threshold associated with eligibility for a wireless device and the sharing access point to concurrently transmit within the one or more reuse periods and the method, apparatuses, and non-transitor ' computer-readable medium may include further operations, features, means, or instructions for measuring a received signal strength associated with one or more signals transmitted by the sharing access point and performing the channel access procedure to access the wireless communication channel in accordance with the received signal strength satisfying the signal strength threshold. In some examples, the one or more rules indicate to perform a contention procedure prior to accessing to the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods and the method, apparatuses, and non-transitory computer-readable medium may include further operations, features, means, or instructions for performing the channel access procedure that may be the contention procedure prior to accessing to the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods and performing the one or more frame exchanges during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods may be in accordance with performing the contention procedure.

[0018] In some examples, the one or more rules indicate to transmit a request over the wireless communication channel and to receive a response from a station in accordance with the request prior to performing the one or more frame exchanges via the wireless communication channel, the one or more rules indicate to decode a request, a response, or both associated with one or more other access points to determine whether to attempt to access the wireless communication channel, the determination based on an address field of the request, an address field of the response, a received signal strength indicator of the request, a received signal strength indicator of the response, or any combination thereof, and performing the contention procedure includes transmitting, to a first station of the one or more stations, the request over the wireless communication channel and transmitting, prior to performing the one or more frame exchanges, the response from the first station in response to the request.

[0019] In some examples, the one or more rules indicate to transmit a self-request message indicating that access has been obtained to the wireless communication channel prior to performing the one or more frame exchanges via the wireless communication channel, and performing the channel access procedure includes transmitting the self-request message indicating that the shared access point may have obtained access to the wireless communication channel and performing the one or more frame exchanges during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with the self-request message.

[0020] In some examples, the one or more rules indicate to decode a physical layer convergence protocol header of one or more frames communicated via the wireless communication channel prior to attempting to access the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods, and performing the channel access procedure includes decoding one or more physical layer convergence protocol headers of one or more frames communicated via the wireless communication channel by one or more third access points prior to attempting to access the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods and performing the one or more frame exchanges during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with decoding the one or more physical layer convergence protocol headers.

[0021] Details of one or more implementations of the subject matter described in this disclosure are set forth in the accompanying drawings and the description below. Other features, aspects, and advantages will become apparent from the description, the drawings and the claims. Note that the relative dimensions of the following figures may not be drawn to scale.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0022] Figure 1 shows a pictorial diagram of an example wireless communication network.

[0023] Figure 2 shows a hierarchical format of an example PPDU usable for communications between a wireless AP and one or more wireless STAs.

[0024] Figure 3 shows an example of a signaling diagram that supports techniques for coordinated spatial reuse (CSR) with open medium sharing.

[0025] Figure 4 shows an example of a resource diagram that supports CSR with open medium sharing.

[0026] Figure 5 shows an example of a resource diagram that supports CSR with open medium sharing.

[0027] Figure 6 shows examples of signaling schemes that support CSR with open medium sharing.

[0028] Figure 7 shows an example of a signaling scheme that supports CSR with open medium sharing.

[0029] Figure 8 shows an example of a process flow that supports CSR with open medium sharing. [0030] Figure 9 shows a block diagram of an example wireless communication device that supports CSR with open medium sharing.

[0031] Figures 10 and 11 show flowcharts illustrating example processes performable by or at a first access point that supports CSR with open medium sharing.

[0032] Figures 12 and 13 show flowcharts illustrating example processes performable by or at a second access point that supports CSR with open medium sharing.

[0033] Like reference numbers and designations in the various drawings indicate like elements.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0034] The following description is directed to some particular examples for the purposes of describing innovative aspects of this disclosure. However, a person having ordinary skill in the art will readily recognize that the teachings herein can be applied in a multitude of different ways. Some or all of the described examples may be implemented in any device, system or network that is capable of transmitting and receiving radio frequency (RF) signals according to one or more of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 standards, the IEEE 802.15 standards, the Bluetooth® standards as defined by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), or the Long Term Evolution (LTE), 3G, 4G, 5G (New Radio (NR)) or 6G standards promulgated by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), among others.

[0035] The described examples can be implemented in any suitable device, component, system or network that is capable of transmitting and receiving RF signals according to one or more of the following technologies or techniques: code division multiple access (CDMA), time division multiple access (TDMA). orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), frequency division multiple access (FDMA), orthogonal FDMA (OFDMA), single-carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA), spatial division multiple access (SDMA). rate-splitting multiple access (RSMA), multi-user shared access (MUSA), single-user (SU) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) and multi-user (MU)-MIMO (MU-MIMO). The described examples also can be implemented using other wireless communication protocols or RF signals suitable for use in one or more of a wireless personal area network (WPAN), a wireless local area network (WLAN), a wireless wide area network (WWAN), a wireless metropolitan area network (WMAN), a nonterrestrial network (NTN), or an internet of things (IOT) network.

[0036] In some wireless communication networks, such as Wi-Fi systems, multiple access points (APs) may be located near each other and may be associated with respective basic service sets (BSSs). In such cases, multiple APs may perform communications with their corresponding client devices (such as a wireless station (STA)) over a wireless medium (such as a wireless communication channel) at a same time. Such overlapping communications may cause interference on the wireless medium and may reduce data throughput for the multiple APs and corresponding STAs. Some APs may utilize coordinate spatial reuse (CSR) techniques to regulate a sharing of the wireless medium and thereby reduce the interference. However, CSR may not allow for shared channel access when a measured interference is relatively high (such as higher than a threshold), which may reduce capacity of the wireless system (such as a reuse factor of the wireless channel). Moreover, an aggregate interference experienced by a first AP may be mostly caused by a subset of nearby APs (such as a highest interfering AP), while some other APs (such as relatively low interference APs) may not increase (or may negligibly increase) the aggregate interference. Thus, the subset of nearby APs may prevent the other APs from sharing the wireless medium resulting in reduced throughput, reduced system capacity, and reduced resource utilization efficiency in the wireless system.

[0037] Various aspects relate generally to CSR with open medium sharing. Some aspects more specifically relate to an open medium sharing technique that enables more flexible sharing of wireless media in a wireless network (such as in dense deployments of APs and OBSS scenarios). In some examples, a first AP (which may be referred to as a sharing AP) may perform a channel access procedure to obtain access to a wireless medium. The first AP may transmit (such as via broadcast) configuration information, such as CSR configuration information, that indicates one or more durations during which the first AP shares the medium with other APs (referred to as reuse periods). Such durations may be reuse sendee periods (SPs), transmission opportunities (TXOPs), or other durations associated with performing communications via the medium. The configuration information also may include one or more rules to enable concurrent communication via the wireless medium during at least a portion of the one or more reuse periods. The one or more rules may indicate various parameters (such as one or more thresholds) and procedures to be used by any AP (which may be referred to as shared APs) that shares the wireless medium during the indicated reuse periods. The CSR configuration information may be transmitted (broadcasted) at any time (such as before, during, or after performance of the channel access procedure).

[0038] In some examples, implementing one or more open medium sharing techniques describe herein, such as transmitting the CSR configuration information, may enable a sharing AP and one or more shared APs to concurrently utilize the shared wireless medium and increase data throughput. For example, by transmitting CSR configuration information, a first AP may indicate intervals during which it may share the wireless medium (such as the reuse periods) despite potential interference experienced by the first AP. Moreover, the one or more rules (indicated via the CSR information) for accessing the medium by other APs may ensure a balance between interference levels and data throughput performance in a wireless network. In accordance with receiving the CSR configuration information multiple APs may concurrently communicate with their associated STAs over the wireless medium, which may improve data throughput, increase system capacity, and improve utilization of communication resources in a wireless communication network.

[0039] Figure 1 shows a pictorial diagram of an example wireless communication network 100. According to some aspects, the wireless communication network 100 can be an example of a wireless local area network (WLAN) such as a Wi-Fi network. For example, the wireless communication network 100 can be a network implementing at least one of the IEEE 802. 11 family of wireless communication protocol standards, such as defined by the IEEE 802. 11 -2020 specification or amendments thereof (including, but not limited to, 802.11ay, 802.11ax (also referred to as Wi-Fi 6), 802.11az, 802.11ba, 802.11bc, 802.11bd, 802.11be (also referred to as Wi-Fi 7), 802.1 Ibf, and 802.1 Ibn (also referred to as Wi-Fi 8)) or other WLAN or Wi-Fi standards, such as that associated with the Integrated Millimeter Wave (IMMW) study group. In some other examples, the wireless communication network 100 can be an example of a cellular radio access network (RAN), such as a 5G or 6G RAN that implements one or more cellular protocols such as those specified in one or more 3GPP standards. In some other examples, the wireless communication network 100 can include a WLAN that functions in an interoperable or converged manner with one or more cellular RANs to provide greater or enhanced netw ork coverage to wireless communication devices within the wireless communication network 100 or to enable such devices to connect to a cellular network’s core, such as to access the network management capabilities and functionality offered by the cellular network core. In some other examples, the wireless communication network 100 can include a WLAN that functions in an interoperable or converged manner with one or more personal area networks, such as a network implementing Bluetooth or other wireless technologies, to provide greater or enhanced network coverage or to provide or enable other capabilities, functionality, applications or services.

[0040] The w ireless communication netw ork 100 may include numerous wireless communication devices including a wireless access point (AP) 102 and any number of wireless stations (STAs) 104. While only one AP 102 is shown in Figure 1, the wireless communication netw ork 100 can include multiple APs 102 (such as in an extended service set (ESS) deployment, enterprise network or AP mesh network), or may not include any AP at all (such as in an independent basic service set (IBSS) such as a peer- to-peer (P2P) network or other ad hoc network). The AP 102 can be or represent various different types of network entities including, but not limited to, a home netw orking AP, an enterprise-level AP, a single-frequency AP, a dual-band simultaneous (DBS) AP, a tri-band simultaneous (TBS) AP, a standalone AP, a non- standalone AP. a software-enabled AP (soft AP), and a multi-link AP (also referred to as an AP multi-link device (MLD)), as well as cellular (such as 3GPP, 4G LTE, 5G or 6G) base stations or other cellular network nodes such as a Node B, an evolved Node B (eNB), a gNB, a transmission reception point (TRP) or another ty pe of device or equipment included in a radio access network (RAN), including Open-RAN (O-RAN) network entities, such as a central unit (CU), a distributed unit (DU) or a radio unit (RU).

[0041] Each of the STAs 104 also may be referred to as a mobile station (MS), a mobile device, a mobile handset, a w ireless handset, an access terminal (AT), a user equipment (UE), a subscriber station (SS). or a subscriber unit, among other examples. The STAs 104 may represent various devices such as mobile phones, other handheld or wearable communication devices, netbooks, notebook computers, tablet computers, laptops, Chromebooks, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), mixed reality (MR) or extended reality (XR) wireless headsets or other peripheral devices, wireless earbuds, other wearable devices, display devices (such as TVs, computer monitors or video gaming consoles), video game controllers, navigation systems, music or other audio or stereo devices, remote control devices, printers, kitchen appliances (including smart refrigerators) or other household appliances, key fobs (such as for passive keyless entry and start (PKES) systems). Internet of Things (loT) devices, and vehicles, among other examples.

[0042] A single AP 102 and an associated set of STAs 104 may be referred to as an infrastructure basic service set (BSS), which is managed by the respective AP 102. Figure 1 additionally shows an example coverage area 108 of the AP 102, which may represent a basic service area (BSA) of the wireless communication network 100. The BSS may be identified by STAs 104 and other devices by a service set identifier (SSID), as well as a basic service set identifier (BSSID), which may be a medium access control (MAC) address of the AP 102. The AP 102 may periodically broadcast beacon frames ("beacons") including the BSSID to enable any STAs 104 within wireless range of the AP 102 to "associate" or re-associate with the AP 102 to establish a respective communication link 106 (hereinafter also referred to as a “Wi-Fi link’’), or to maintain a communication link 106, with the AP 102. For example, the beacons can include an identification or indication of a primary channel used by the respective AP 102 as well as a timing synchronization function (TSF) for establishing or maintaining timing synchronization with the AP 102. The AP 102 may provide access to external networks to various STAs 104 in the wireless communication network 100 via respective communication links 106.

[0043] To establish a communication link 106 with an AP 102, each of the STAs 104 is configured to perform passive or active scanning operations (“scans”) on frequency channels in one or more frequency bands (such as the 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, 6 GHz, 45 GHz, or 60 GHz bands). To perform passive scanning, a STA 104 listens for beacons, which are transmitted by respective APs 102 at periodic time intervals referred to as target beacon transmission times (TBTTs). To perform active scanning, a STA 104 generates and sequentially transmits probe requests on each channel to be scanned and listens for probe responses from APs 102. Each STA 104 may identify, determine, ascertain, or select an AP 102 with which to associate in accordance with the scanning information obtained through the passive or active scans, and to perform authentication and association operations to establish a communication link 106 with the selected AP 102. The selected AP 102 assigns an association identifier (AID) to the STA 104 at the culmination of the association operations, w hich the AP 102 uses to track the STA 104.

[0044] As a result of the increasing ubiquity of wireless netw orks, a STA 104 may have the opportunity to select one of many BSSs within range of the STA 104 or to select among multiple APs 102 that together form an ESS including multiple connected BSSs. For example, the wireless communication network 100 may be connected to a wired or wireless distribution system that may enable multiple APs 102 to be connected in such an ESS. As such, a STA 104 can be covered by more than one AP 102 and can associate with different APs 102 at different times for different transmissions.

Additionally, after association with an AP 102, a STA 104 also may penodically scan its surroundings to find a more suitable AP 102 with which to associate. For example, a STA 104 that is moving relative to its associated AP 102 may perform a “roaming” scan to find another AP 102 having more desirable network characteristics such as a greater received signal strength indicator (RSSI) or a reduced traffic load.

[0045] In some examples, STAs 104 may form networks without APs 102 or other equipment other than the STAs 104 themselves. One example of such a network is an ad hoc network (or wireless ad hoc network). Ad hoc networks may alternatively be referred to as mesh networks or P2P networks. In some examples, ad hoc networks may be implemented within a larger network such as the wireless communication network 100. In such examples, while the STAs 104 may be capable of communicating with each other through the AP 102 using communication links 106, STAs 104 also can communicate directly with each other via direct wireless communication links 110.

Additionally, two STAs 104 may communicate via a direct wireless communication link 110 regardless of whether both STAs 104 are associated with and served by the same AP 102. In such an ad hoc system, one or more of the STAs 104 may assume the role filled by the AP 102 in a BSS. Such a STA 104 may be referred to as a group owner (GO) and may coordinate transmissions within the ad hoc network. Examples of direct wireless communication links 110 include Wi-Fi Direct connections, connections established by using a Wi-Fi Tunneled Direct Link Setup (TDLS) link, and other P2P group connections.

[0046] In some networks, the AP 102 or the STAs 104, or both, may support applications associated with high throughput or low-latency requirements, or may provide lossless audio to one or more other devices. For example, the AP 102 or the STAs 104 may support applications and use cases associated with ultra-low-latency (ULL), such as ULL gaming, or streaming lossless audio and video to one or more personal audio devices (such as peripheral devices) or AR/VR/MR/XR headset devices. In scenarios in which a user uses two or more peripheral devices, the AP 102 or the STAs 104 may support an extended personal audio network enabling communication with the two or more peripheral devices. Additionally, the AP 102 and STAs 104 may support additional ULL applications such as cloud-based applications (such as VR cloud gaining) that have ULL and high throughput requirements.

[0047] As indicated above, in some implementations, the AP 102 and the STAs 104 may function and communicate (via the respective communication links 106) according to one or more of the IEEE 802. 11 family of wireless communication protocol standards. These standards define the WLAN radio and baseband protocols for the physical (PHY) and MAC layers. The AP 102 and STAs 104 transmit and receive wireless communications (hereinafter also referred to as “Wi-Fi communications⁷’ or “wireless packets”) to and from one another in the form of PHY protocol data units (PPDUs).

[0048] Each PPDU is a composite structure that includes a PHY preamble and a payload that is in the form of a PHY service data unit (PSDU). The information provided in the preamble may be used by a receiving device to decode the subsequent data in the PSDU. In instances in which a PPDU is transmitted over a bonded or wideband channel, the preamble fields may be duplicated and transmitted in each of multiple component channels. The PHY preamble may include both a legacy portion (or “legacy preamble”) and a non-legacy portion (or “non-legacy preamble”). The legacy preamble may be used for packet detection, automatic gain control and channel estimation, among other uses. The legacy preamble also may generally be used to maintain compatibility with legacy devices. The format of, coding of, and information provided in the non-legacy portion of the preamble is associated with the particular IEEE 802. 11 wireless communication protocol to be used to transmit the payload.

[0049] The APs 102 and STAs 104 in the wireless communication netw ork 100 may transmit PPDUs over an unlicensed spectrum, which may be a portion of spectrum that includes frequency bands traditionally used by Wi-Fi technology, such as the 2.4 GHz. 5 GHz, 6 GHz, 45 GHz, and 60 GHz bands. Some examples of the APs 102 and STAs 104 described herein also may communicate in other frequency bands that may support licensed or unlicensed communications. For example, the APs 102 or STAs 104, or both, also may be capable of communicating over licensed operating bands, where multiple operators may have respective licenses to operate in the same or overlapping frequency ranges. Such licensed operating bands may map to or be associated w ith frequency range designations of FR1 (410 MHz - 7.125 GHz), FR2 (24.25 GHz - 52.6 GHz), FR3 (7.125 GHz - 24.25 GHz), FR4a or FR4-1 (52.6 GHz - 71 GHz), FR4 (52.6 GHz - 114.25 GHz), and FR5 (114.25 GHz - 300 GHz).

[0050] Each of the frequency bands may include multiple sub-bands and frequency channels (also referred to as subchannels). The terms “channel” and “subchannel” may be used interchangeably herein, as each may refer to a portion of frequency spectrum within a frequency band (such as a 20 MHz. 40 MHz, 80 MHz, or 160 MHz portion of frequency spectrum) via which communication between two or more wireless communication devices can occur. For example, PPDUs conforming to the IEEE 802.11n, 802.11ac, 802.11ax, 802.11be and 802.11bn standard amendments may be transmitted over one or more of the 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, or 6 GHz bands, each of which is divided into multiple 20 MHz channels. As such, these PPDUs are transmitted over a physical channel having a minimum bandwidth of 20 MHz, but larger channels can be formed through channel bonding. For example, PPDUs may be transmitted over physical channels having bandwidths of 40 MHz, 80 MHz, 160 MHz, 240 MHz, 320 MHz, 480 MHz, or 640 MHz by bonding together multiple 20 MHz channels.

[0051] An AP 102 may determine or select an operating or operational bandwidth for the STAs 104 in its BSS and select a range of channels within a band to provide that operating bandwddth. For example, the AP 102 may select sixteen 20 MHz channels that collectively span an operating bandwidth of 320 MHz. Within the operating bandwidth, the AP 102 may typically select a single primary 20 MHz channel on which the AP 102 and the STAs 104 in its BSS monitor for contention-based access schemes. In some examples, the AP 102 or the STAs 104 may be capable of monitoring only a single primary 20 MHz channel for packet detection (such as for detecting preambles of PPDUs). Conventionally, any transmission by an AP 102 or a STA 104 within a BSS must involve transmission on the primary 20 MHz channel. As such, in conventional systems, the transmitting device must contend on and win a TXOP on the primary channel to transmit anything at all. However, some APs 102 and STAs 104 supporting ultra-high reliability (UHR) communications or communication according to the IEEE 802.1 1 bn standard amendment can be configured to operate, monitor, contend and communicate using multiple primary 20 MHz channels. Such monitoring of multiple primary 20 MHz channels may be sequential such that responsive to determining, ascertaining or detecting that a first primary 20 MHz channel is not available, a wireless communication device may switch to monitoring and contending using a second primary 20 MHz channel. Additionally, or alternatively, a wireless communication device may be configured to monitor multiple primary 20 MHz channels in parallel. In some examples, a first primary 20 MHz channel may be referred to as a main primary (M-Primary) channel and one or more additional, second primary channels may each be referred to as an opportunistic primary (O-Primary) channel. For example, if a wireless communication device measures, identifies, ascertains, detects, or otherwise determines that the M-Primary channel is busy or occupied (such as due to an overlapping BSS (OBSS) transmission), the wireless communication device may switch to monitoring and contending on an O-Primary channel. In some examples, the M-Primary channel may be used for beaconing and serving legacy client devices and an O-Primary channel may be specifically used by non-legacy (such as UHR- or IEEE 802.11bn-compatible) devices for opportunistic access to spectrum that may be otherwise under-utilized.

[0052] Figure 2 shows a hierarchical format of an example PPDU usable for communications between a wireless AP and one or more wireless STAs. For example, the AP and STAs may be examples of the AP 102 and the STAs 104 described with reference to Figure 1. As described, each PPDU 200 includes a PHY preamble 202 and a PSDU 204. Each PSDU 204 may represent (or ‘‘carry”) one or more MAC protocol data units (MPDUs) 216. For example, each PSDU 204 may carry an aggregated MPDU (A-MPDU) 206 that includes an aggregation of multiple A-MPDU subframes 208. Each A-MPDU subframe 208 may include an MPDU frame 210 that includes a MAC delimiter 212 and a MAC header 214 prior to the accompanying MPDU 216, which includes the data portion (“payload'’ or “frame body”) of the MPDU frame 210. Each MPDU frame 210 also may include a frame check sequence (FCS) field 218 for error detection (such as the FCS field 218 may include a cyclic redundancy check (CRC)) and padding bits 220. The MPDU 216 may carry one or more MAC service data units (MSDUs) 230. For example, the MPDU 216 may carry an aggregated MSDU (A-MSDU) 222 including multiple A-MSDU subframes 224. Each A-MSDU subframe 224 may be associated with an MSDU frame 226 and may contain a corresponding MSDU 230 preceded by a subframe header 228 and, in some examples, followed by padding bits 232.

[0053] Referring back to the MPDU frame 210, the MAC delimiter 212 may serve as a marker of the start of the associated MPDU 216 and indicate the length of the associated MPDU 216. The MAC header 214 may include multiple fields containing information that defines or indicates characteristics or attributes of data encapsulated within the frame body. The MAC header 214 includes a duration field indicating a duration extending from the end of the PPDU until at least the end of an acknowledgement (ACK) or Block ACK (BA) of the PPDU that is to be transmitted by the receiving wireless communication device. The use of the duration field serves to reserve the wireless medium for the indicated duration and enables the receiving device to establish its network allocation vector (NAV). The MAC header 214 also includes one or more fields indicating addresses for the data encapsulated within the frame body. For example, the MAC header 214 may include a combination of a source address, a transmitter address, a receiver address or a destination address. The MAC header 214 may further include a frame control field containing control information. The frame control field may specify a frame type, for example, a data frame, a control frame, or a management frame.

[0054] In some wireless communication systems, wireless communication between an AP 102 and an associated STA 104 can be secured. For example, either an AP 102 or a STA 104 may establish a security⁷ key for securing wireless communication between itself and the other device and may encrypt the contents of the data and management frames using the security key. In some examples, the control frame and fields within the MAC header of the data or management frames, or both, also may be secured either via encryption or via an integrity check (such as by generating a message integrity' check (MIC) for one or more relevant fields.

[0055] Access to the shared wireless medium is generally governed by a distributed coordination function (DCF). With a DCF, there is generally no centralized master device allocating time and frequency resources of the shared wireless medium. On the contrary, before a wireless communication device, such as an AP 102 or a STA 104, is permitted to transmit data, it may wait for a particular time and contend for access to the wireless medium. The DCF is implemented through the use of time intervals (including the slot time (or ‘'slot interval”) and the inter-frame space (IFS). IFS provides priority access for control frames used for proper network operation. Transmissions may begin at slot boundaries. Different varieties of IFS exist including the short IFS (SIFS), the distributed IFS (DIFS), the extended IFS (EIFS), and the arbitration IFS (AIFS). The values for the slot time and IFS may be provided by a suitable standard specification, such as one or more of the IEEE 802. 11 family of wireless communication protocol standards.

[0056] In some examples, the wireless communication device (such as the AP 102 or the STA 104) may implement the DCF through the use of carrier sense multiple access (CSMA) with collision avoidance (CA) (CSMA/CA) techniques. According to such techniques, before transmitting data, the wireless communication device may perform a clear channel assessment (CCA) and may determine (such as identify, detect, ascertain, calculate, or compute) that the relevant wireless channel is idle. The CCA includes both physical (PHY -level) carrier sensing and virtual (MAC-level) carrier sensing. Physical carrier sensing is accomplished via a measurement of the received signal strength of a valid frame, which is compared to a threshold to determine (such as identify, detect, ascertain, calculate, or compute) whether the channel is busy. For example, if the received signal strength of a detected preamble is above a threshold, the medium is considered busy. Physical carrier sensing also includes energy detection. Energy detection involves measuring the total energy the w ireless communication device receives regardless of whether the received signal represents a valid frame. If the total energy detected is above a threshold, the medium is considered busy. [0057] Virtual carrier sensing is accomplished via the use of a network allocation vector (NAV), which effectively serves as a time duration that elapses before the wireless communication device may contend for access even in the absence of a detected symbol or even if the detected energy is below the relevant threshold. The NAV is reset each time a valid frame is received that is not addressed to the wireless communication device. When the NAV reaches 0, the wireless communication device performs the physical carrier sensing. If the channel remains idle for the appropriate IFS, the wireless communication device initiates a backoff timer, which represents a duration of time that the device senses the medium to be idle before it is permitted to transmit. If the channel remains idle until the backoff timer expires, the wireless communication device becomes the holder (or "ow ner") of a transmit opportunity⁷ (TXOP) and may begin transmitting. The TXOP is the duration of time the w ireless communication device can transmit frames over the channel after it has "w on" contention for the wireless medium. The TXOP duration may be indicated in the U-SIG field of a PPDU. If, on the other hand, one or more of the carrier sense mechanisms indicate that the channel is busy, a MAC controller within the wireless communication device will not permit transmission.

[0058] Each time the wireless communication device generates a new PPDU for transmission in anew TXOP, it randomly selects a new backoff timer duration. The available distribution of the numbers that may be randomly selected for the backoff timer is referred to as the contention window⁷ (CW). There are different CW and TXOP durations for each of the four access categories (ACs): voice (AC_VO), video (AC VI), background (AC BK), and best effort (AC BE). This enables particular types of traffic to be prioritized in the network.

[0059] In some other examples, the wireless communication device (such as the AP 102 or the STA 104) may contend for access to the wireless medium of a WLAN in accordance with an enhanced distributed channel access (EDCA) procedure. A random channel access mechanism such as EDCA may afford high-priority traffic a greater likelihood of gaining medium access than low -priority traffic. The wireless communication device using EDCA may classify data into different access categories. Each AC may be associated with a different priority level and may be assigned a different range of random backoffs (RBOs) so that higher priority data is more likely to win a TXOP than lower priority data (such as by assigning lower RBOs to higher priority data and assigning higher RBOs to lower priority data). Although EDCA increases the likelihood that low-latency data traffic will gain access to a shared wireless medium during a given contention period, unpredictable outcomes of medium access contention operations may prevent low-latency applications from achieving certain levels of throughput or satisfying certain latency requirements.

[0060] Some APs and STAs (such as the AP 102 and the STAs 104 described with reference to Figure 1) may implement spatial reuse techniques. For example. APs 102 and STAs 104 configured for communications using the protocols defined in the IEEE 802. 1 lax or 802. 1 Ibe standard amendments may be configured with a BSS color. APs 102 associated with different BSSs may be associated with different BSS colors. A BSS color is a numerical identifier of an AP 102’s respective BSS (such as a 6 bit field carried by the SIG field). Each STA 104 may leam its own BSS color upon association with the respective AP 102. BSS color information is communicated at both the PHY and MAC sublayers. If an AP 102 or a STA 104 detects, obtains, selects, or identifies, a wireless packet from another wireless communication device while contending for access, the AP 102 or the STA 104 may apply different contention parameters in accordance with whether the wireless packet is transmitted by, or transmitted to, another wireless communication device (such another AP 102 or STA 104) within its BSS or from a wireless communication device from an overlapping BSS (OBSS), as determined, identified, ascertained, or calculated by a BSS color indication in a preamble of the wireless packet. For example, if the BSS color associated with the wireless packet is the same as the BSS color of the AP 102 or STA 104, the AP 102 or STA 104 may use a first RSSI detection threshold when performing a CCA on the wireless channel. However, if the BSS color associated with the wireless packet is different than the BSS color of the AP 102 or STA 104, the AP 102 or STA 104 may use a second RSSI detection threshold in lieu of using the first RSSI detection threshold when performing the CCA on the wireless channel, the second RSSI detection threshold being greater than the first RSSI detection threshold. In this way, the criteria for winning contention are relaxed when interfering transmissions are associated with an OBSS. [0061] Some APs and STAs (such as the AP 102 and the STAs 104 described with reference to Figure 1) may implement techniques for spatial reuse that involve participation in a coordinated communication scheme. According to such techniques, an AP 102 may contend for access to a wireless medium to obtain control of the medium for a TXOP. The AP that wins the contention (hereinafter also referred to as a “sharing AP”) may select one or more other APs (hereinafter also referred to as “shared APs”) to share resources of the TXOP. The sharing and shared APs may be located in proximity to one another such that at least some of their wireless coverage areas at least partially overlap. Some examples may specifically involve coordinated AP TDMA or OFDMA techniques for sharing the time or frequency resources of a TXOP. To share its time or frequency resources, the sharing AP may partition the TXOP into multiple time segments or frequency segments each including respective time or frequency resources representing a portion of the TXOP. The sharing AP may allocate the time or frequency segments to itself or to one or more of the shared APs. For example, each shared AP may utilize a partial TXOP assigned by the sharing AP for its uplink or downlink communications with its associated STAs.

[0062] In some examples of such TDMA techniques, each portion of a plurality of portions of the TXOP includes a set of time resources that do not overlap with any time resources of any other portion of the plurality of portions of the TXOP. In such examples, the scheduling information may include an indication of time resources, of multiple time resources of the TXOP, associated with each portion of the TXOP. For example, the scheduling information may include an indication of a time segment of the TXOP such as an indication of one or more slots or sets of symbol periods associated with each portion of the TXOP such as for multi-user TDMA.

[0063] In some examples of OFDMA techniques, each portion of the plurality of portions of the TXOP includes a set of frequency resources that do not overlap with any frequency resources of any other portion of the plurality of portions. In such examples, the scheduling information may include an indication of frequency resources, of multiple frequency resources of the TXOP, associated with each portion of the TXOP. For example, the scheduling information may include an indication of a bandwidth portion of the wireless channel such as an indication of one or more subchannels or resource units associated with each portion of the TXOP such as for multi-user OFDMA.

[0064] In this manner, the sharing AP's acquisition of the TXOP enables communication between one or more additional shared APs and their respective BSSs, subject to appropriate power control and link adaptation. For example, the sharing AP may limit the transmit powers of the selected shared APs such that interference from the selected APs does not prevent STAs associated with the TXOP owner from successfully decoding packets transmitted by the sharing AP. Such techniques may be used to reduce latency because the other APs may not need to wait to win contention for a TXOP to be able to transmit and receive data according to conventional CSMA/CA or EDC A techniques. Additionally, by enabling a group of APs 102 associated with different BSSs to participate in a coordinated AP transmission session, during which the group of APs may share at least a portion of a single TXOP obtained by any one of the participating APs, such techniques may increase throughput across the BSSs associated with the participating APs and also may achieve improvements in throughput fairness. Furthermore, with appropriate selection of the shared APs and the scheduling of their respective time or frequency resources, medium utilization may be maximized or otherwise increased while packet loss resulting from OBSS interference is minimized or otherwise reduced. Various implementations may achieve these and other advantages without requiring that the sharing AP or the shared APs be aware of the STAs 104 associated with other BSSs, without requiring a preassigned or dedicated master AP or preassigned groups of APs, and without requiring backhaul coordination between the APs participating in the TXOP.

[0065] In some examples in which the signal strengths or levels of interference associated with the selected APs are relatively low (such as less than a given value), or when the decoding error rates of the selected APs are relatively low (such as less than a threshold), the start times of the communications among the different BSSs may be synchronous. Conversely, when the signal strengths or levels of interference associated with the selected APs are relatively high (such as greater than the given value), or when the decoding error rates of the selected APs are relatively high (such as greater than the threshold), the start times may be offset from one another by a time period associated with decoding the preamble of a wireless packet and determining, from the decoded preamble, whether the wireless packet is an intra-BSS packet or is an OBSS packet. For example, the time period between the transmission of an intra-BSS packet and the transmission of an OBSS packet may allow a respective AP (or its associated STAs) to decode the preamble of the wireless packet and obtain the BSS color value carried in the wireless packet to determine whether the wireless packet is an intra-BSS packet or an OBSS packet. In this manner, each of the participating APs and their associated STAs may be able to receive and decode intra-BSS packets in the presence of OBSS interference.

[0066] In some examples, the sharing AP may perform polling of a set of unmanaged or non-co-managed APs that support coordinated reuse to identify candidates for future spatial reuse opportunities. For example, the sharing AP may transmit one or more spatial reuse poll frames as part of determining one or more spatial reuse criteria and selecting one or more other APs to be shared APs. According to the polling, the sharing AP may receive responses from one or more of the polled APs. In some specific examples, the sharing AP may transmit a coordinated AP TXOP indication (CTI) frame to other APs that indicates time and frequency of resources of the TXOP that can be shared. The sharing AP may select one or more candidate APs upon receiving a coordinated AP TXOP request (CTR) frame from a respective candidate AP that indicates a desire by the respective AP to participate in the TXOP. The poll responses or CTR frames may include a power indication, for example, a receive (RX) power or RSSI measured by the respective AP. In some other examples, the sharing AP may directly measure potential interference of a service supported (such as UL transmission) at one or more APs, and select the shared APs based on the measured potential interference. The sharing AP generally selects the APs to participate in coordinated spatial reuse such that it still protects its own transmissions (which may be referred to as primary' transmissions) to and from the STAs in its BSS. The selected APs may be allocated resources during the TXOP as described above.

[0067] In some environments, locations, or conditions, a regulatory body may impose a power spectral density (PSD) limit for one or more communication channels or for an entire band (such as the 6 GHz band). A PSD is a measure of transmit power as a function of a unit bandwidth (such as per 1 MHz). The total transmit power of a transmission is consequently the product of the PSD and the total bandwidth by which the transmission is sent. Unlike the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands, the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has established PSD limits for low power devices when operating in the 6 GHz band. The FCC has defined three power classes for operation in the 6 GHz band: standard power, low power indoor, and very low power. Some APs 102 and ST As 104 that operate in the 6 GHz band may conform to the low power indoor (LPI) power class, which limits the transmit power of APs 102 and STAs 104 to 5 decibel-milliwatts per megahertz (dBm/MHz) and - 1 dBm/MHz, respectively. In other words, transmit power in the 6 GHz band is PSD-limited on a per-MHz basis.

[0068] Such PSD limits can undesirably reduce transmission ranges, reduce packet detection capabilities, and reduce channel estimation capabilities of APs 102 and STAs 104. In some examples in which transmissions are subject to a PSD limit, the AP 102 or the STAs 104 of a wireless communication network 100 may transmit over a greater transmission bandwidth to allow for an increase in the total transmit power, which mayincrease a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and extend coverage of the wireless communication devices. For example, to overcome or extend the PSD limit and improve SNR for low power devices operating in PSD-limited bands. 802. 1 Ibe introduced a duplicate (DUP) mode for a transmission, by which data in a payload portion of a PPDU is modulated for transmission over a “base” frequency sub-band, such as a first RU of an OFDMA transmission, and copied over (such as duplicated) to another frequency sub-band, such as a second RU of the OFDMA transmission. In DUP mode, two copies of the data are to be transmitted, and, for each of the duplicate RUs, using dual carrier modulation (DCM), which also has the effect of copying the data such that two copies of the data are carried by each of the duplicate RUs, so that, for example, four copies of the data are transmitted. While the data rate for transmission of each copy of the user data using the DUP mode may be the same as a data rate for a transmission using a “normal” mode, the transmit power for the transmission using the DUP mode may be essentially multiplied by the number of copies of the data being transmitted, at the expense of requiring an increased bandwidth. As such, using the DUP mode may extend range but reduce spectrum efficiency.

[0069] In some other examples in which transmissions are subject to a PSD limit, a distributed tone mapping operation may be used to increase the bandwidth via which a STA 104 transmits an uplink communication to the AP 102. As used herein, the term “distributed transmission” refers to a PPDU transmission on noncontiguous tones (or subcarriers) of a wireless channel. In contrast, the term “contiguous transmission” refers to a PPDU transmission on contiguous tones. As used herein, a logical RU represents a number of tones or subcarriers that are allocated to a given STA 104 for transmission of a PPDU. As used herein, the term “regular RU” (or rRU) refers to any RU or MRU tone plan that is not distributed, such as a configuration supported by 802. 1 Ibe or earlier versions of the IEEE 802. 11 family of wireless communication protocol standards. As used herein, the term “distributed RU” (or dRU) refers to the tones distributed across a set of noncontiguous subcarrier indices to which a logical RU is mapped. The term “distributed tone plan” refers to the set of noncontiguous subcarrier indices associated with a dRU. The channel or portion of a channel within which the distributed tones are interspersed is referred to as a spreading bandwidth, which may be, for example, 40 MHz, 80 MHz or more. The use of dRUs may be limited to uplink communications because benefits to addressing PSD limits may only be present for uplink communications.

[0070] Figure 3 shows an example of a signaling diagram 300 that supports coordinated spatial reuse (CSR) with open medium sharing. The signaling diagram 300 may include a wireless communication network that includes various APs 102 (such as wireless APs) and STAs 104 (such as wireless STAs). Each AP 102 may be associated with a respective BSS and one or more respective STAs 104. For example, an AP 102-a may be associated with a STA 104-a via a link 106-a, an AP 102-b may be associated with a STA 104-b via a link 106-b, an AP 102-c may be associated with a STA 104-c via a link 106-c, and so on. In some examples, the various devices of the signaling diagram 300 may support open medium sharing based on the CSR configuration information 302, which may be communicated by one or more APs 102 (such as before, during, or after a channel access procedure, via one or more broadcast messages). The techniques described herein may be applied by any quantity of APs 102 and STAs 104 including more APs 102 and STAs 104 or less APs 102 and STAs 104 than shown in Figure 3 (given that each of the APs 102 and the STAs 104 are able to operate in accordance with one or more advertised rules for open medium sharing). [0071] In some cases, the APs 102 and the STAs 104 may support CCA rules and unregulated medium reuse. For instance, in a multi-AP deployment, medium access may be carefully regulated to avoid high interference scenarios across adjacent BSSs. In such cases, one or more CCA rules may define an energy detection (ED) threshold. If a detected power or energy upon sensing the medium (such as by one or more APs 102) indicates that the medium is busy (occupied, owned, currently accessed by another AP 102), transmissions may be deferred (such as for a duration of time). However, applying the ED threshold value (which may be defined by an industry standard) may not guarantee exclusive medium access to one BSS at a time. Thus, some medium reuse may occur and, in some cases, multiple OBSSs may impose relatively high interference levels on each other (resulting in degraded system performance).

[0072] Additionally, in some scenarios (such as in 40 MHz multi-BSS), a reduction in an average throughput rate (in terms of megabits per second) may occur when one or more APs 102 are placed far enough away from each other (such as outside a threshold distance). For instance, the one or more APs may be spaced far enough to have mutual RS SI values that are lower than the ED threshold. As distance between the one or more APs 102 increases, interference levels may decrease, and an average throughput rate may converge (such as to a full rate). However, some operating conditions, such as when two APs 102 measures an energy that is just below (such as within a threshold quantity ol) the ED threshold, the two APs may concurrently gain unregulated access to the wireless medium, which may result in relatively high interference thereby reducing data throughput rates of the system.

[0073] Accordingly, CSR procedures may be used to regulate the medium access (such as in cases when a received signal power is below' the ED threshold). CSR may enable an AP 102 that owns the medium access (such as an AP that gains access first) to share it with other APs 102 (such as to increase system capacity). That is, an AP 102 may perform a channel access procedure (such as a contention based procedure) to access a wireless medium (such as a communication channel) and may gain access (or “own” access) to the channel for a duration based on performing the procedure. In some cases, the AP 102 that owns the medium access may be referred to as a “sharing AP,” and the APs 102 sharing the medium with the sharing AP are referred to as “shared APs.” In some cases, based on a channel measurement (an energy measurement of the medium) and using STA scheduling, a sharing AP 102 and/or a shared AP 102 may decide whether to share the medium. When a measured interference is below a threshold (a low interference scenario), the medium may be shared by the APs 102. When the measured interference is above a threshold (in a high interference scenario), the medium may not be shared. In some cases, the measured interference level may be determined to satisfy or fail to satisfy the threshold based on one or more rules announced by the sharing AP 102.

[0074] In some cases, the devices in the signaling diagram 300 may support target wake time (TWT) techniques. For instance. TWT may enable power saving at the APs 102 and the STAs 104 by sharing their expected wake time with other devices and avoiding continuous monitoring of the medium. In some cases, an AP 102 or a STA 104 may utilize a restricted TWT (rTWT) to further improve the usage of network resources. For instance, resources may be reserved by announcing rTWT Service Periods (SPs) that are dedicated to the SP owner. In some cases, rTWT may be used for serving latency sensitive traffic, which may have predictable patterns, rTWT may be used to preschedule SPs dedicated to sen e such traffic. Further, rTWT may operate on a BSS level, and there may be no guarantee that rTWT SPs are respected (or recognized) across BSSs (such as between respective communications associated with multiple APs 102).

[0075] The devices of the signaling diagram 300 may further utilize a Coordinated- rTWT (C-rTWT) as an extension of rTWT. For instance, a C-rTWT may configure a BSS to respect (or refrain from transmitting during) SPs associated with other BSSs’ thus ensuring exclusive medium access for one BSS without having interference from one or more OBSSs. Accordingly, C-rTWT may be suited for AP -level coordination schemes, which may operate based on (or on top of) C-rTWT. For instance, CSR and Coordinated-TDMA (C-TDMA) may be examples of AP-level coordination features that utilize C-rTWT.

[0076] In such cases of medium sharing and reuse, CCA and EDCA rules may prevent one OBSS to perform communications at a same time as another OBSS’s transmission. However, such rules may not guarantee exclusive access and may result in relatively high interference levels experienced by an AP 102. In some cases, a relatively high reuse factor of the medium may compensate for the high interference. however, the high interference may prevent other APs 102 from reusing the medium. For instance, an aggregate interference level experienced by an AP 102-a (a sharing AP) may be dominated by a highest interferer, such as an AP 102-d or an AP 102-e, that is relatively nearby the AP 102-a and/or that is associated with an RSSI that exceeds a threshold. In other words, one or more other APs (more OBSSs) that may potentially share the medium, such as the AP 102-b and the AP 102-c, may not significantly increase the interference experienced by the AP 102-a and may increase the reuse factor of the medium.

[0077] In accordance with one or more techniques described herein, and to increase the reuse factor of the wireless medium, an AP 102-a (a sharing AP) may support techniques to enable multiple APs 102 (as many APs 102 as possible) to share the medium (such as a wireless communication channel) with the AP 102-a. For example, the AP 102-a may transmit (announce, broadcast, indicate, convey) CSR configuration information 302 to multiple other APs 102. The CSR configuration information 302 may indicate time resources (intervals, durations) during which the AP 102-a shares the medium with the other APs 102. Such durations may be referred to as reuse periods (such as reuse SPs, reuse SP time durations, and TXOPs). The AP 102-a may further control interference by including one or more rules in the CSR configuration information 302 that indicate parameters and procedures to be used by the other APs in order to access the medium during the reuse periods.

[0078] In some examples, the described techniques may include an SP-based CSR framework. For example, each AP 102 may define one or more reuse SPs and one or more SPs (such as orthogonal SPs or dedicated SPs) that are not for reuse or sharing by other APs 102. In some examples, the CSR configuration information 302 including the reuse SPs may be transmitted via one or more beacon frames, and the indicated reuse SPs may be declared for reuse among other APs 102. The SP-based CSR framework may be described in greater detail herein, including with reference to Figure 4.

[0079] The devices of the signaling diagram 300 may support a beacon power-based sharing AP classification. Each AP 102 may monitor one or more RSSI levels of its neighboring APs 102. In some examples, an RSSI measurement at an AP 102 may be based on general or specific-purpose broadcast frames, such as one or more beacon frames or other frames sent for RSSI measurements. Based on the measured RSSI levels, each AP 102 may classify (group, identify, sort) one or more other APs 102 (neighbor APs) into a first class associated with reuse APs 102 or a second class associated with non-reuse APs 102. A “reuse AP"’ may refer to an AP 102 for which medium sharing is approved (using the AP’s reuse SPs is allowed). A “non-reuse AP” may refer to an AP 102 for which medium sharing is not approved (undesired, using the AP’s reuse SPs is not allowed).

[0080] In some examples, the measured RS SI levels may be compared to a threshold value (such as a parameter, RSSI Th). If a measured RSSI of an AP 102 does not exceed the threshold value, the AP 102 may be classified as a reuse AP 102 (a low interference AP). Alternatively, if the measured RSSI of an AP 102 exceeds the threshold value, the AP 102 may be classified as a non-reuse AP 102 (a high interference AP). Each AP 102 may use such AP classification criterion to create a “CSR pairing list,” which may include each AP 102 for which a measured RSSI does not exceed the threshold value (and are thus good candidates for medium sharing). In some examples, the threshold value may be advertised (transmitted) to other APs 102 via a beacon frame (along with or included in the CSR configuration information 302).

[0081] As an illustrative example, the AP 102-a may be a candidate shared AP (may be seeking to share access to the wireless medium). The AP 102-a may measure an RSSI for each of the other APs 102 (such as AP 102-b through AP 102-e) and, for example, may add the AP 102-b and the AP 102-c to its CSR pairing list (based on a comparison to the RSSI threshold). When the AP 102-a detects CSR configuration information 302 (such as a reuse period announcement) transmitted by another AP 102 (such as any AP 102-b through AP 102-e), the AP 102-a may determine whether its own CSR pairing list includes the other AP 102. If the other AP 102 is included in the CSR pairing list (such as AP 102-b or 102-c), the AP 102-a may proceed to use the reuse periods indicated in the CSR configuration information 302 (subject to other reuse period sharing rules). If the other AP 102 is not included in the CSR pairing list (such as AP 102-d or AP 102-e), the AP 102-a may not use the indicated reuse periods to access the medium. In other words, an AP 102 that receives CSR configuration information 302 (such as a candidate shared AP) may perform the decision of whether to access the shared medium (and not the sharing AP), which may be based on a comparison of RSSI to a threshold and a determination of whether the AP 102 is able to conform to the medium sharing rules.

[0082] In some examples, the described techniques may include client classification techniques. In such examples, one or more client devices, such as STAs 104 associated with an AP 102, may be classified into different groups. The groups may include inner clients (client devices that are within a threshold distance of their associated AP 102 and/or that measure an SNR greater than a threshold) and outer clients (edge clients, client devices that are outside a threshold distance of their associated AP 102 and/or that measure an SNR lower than a threshold). The client classification techniques may be described in greater detail herein, including with reference to Figure 5.

[0083] The devices of the signaling diagram 300 may support open medium reuse techniques (a medium reuse mechanism). That is, for open medium reuse, any of the APs 102 may use one or more indicated reuse periods (given that it satisfies the criteria). In some examples, shared APs may not be explicitly indicated by a sharing AP (may not be called by a BSS identifier (BSSID)). For instance, in some cases (such as restricted medium sharing) a sharing AP 102 may announce a list of viable APs 102 that are given permission to share the medium. That is, one or more BSSIDs of the approved shared APs 102 may be included in the reuse period announcement alongside additional sharing rules that may be followed by a shared AP 102. Alternatively, in some examples (such as open medium sharing mechanisms), a sharing AP 102 may indicate (via the CSR configuration information 302) one or more medium sharing rules and may not specify any APs 102 by name (such as a BSSID) for sharing. Accordingly, to share the reuse period, a candidate shared AP 102 may evaluate if it can abide by the one or more sharing rules announced by the sharing AP 102. If the candidate shared AP 102 is capable of operating in accordance with the one or more rules, the AP 102 may share the reuse periods. Thus, an open medium sharing approach may translate a decision-making responsibility to the shared APs, which may simplify operation at the sharing AP 102.

[0084] The devices of the signaling diagram 300 may support shared AP medium contention procedures. For example, because the APs 102 may support open medium reuse, each candidate shared AP 102 may contend within the one or more indicated reuse periods to gain medium access. That is, each shared AP 102 may contend for medium access within the reuse period before starting a transmission (such as to one or more STAs 104). In some examples, if a candidate shared AP 102 contending for medium access detects another shared AP 102 already transmitting within the reuse period, the candidate shared AP 102 may apply one or more additional techniques described herein (such as described with reference to Figure 6) to determine whether to proceed to access and share the medium (in addition to the detected AP 102).

[0085] In some examples, the described techniques may include classification techniques for shared APs 102. For example, a candidate shared AP 102 (that is, an AP 102 that has not yet gained access to the medium) may assess interference levels associated with other APs 102 and the effect that the interference levels may have on its own client devices (STAs 104). In some examples, a shared AP 102 may perform a request-to-send (RTS) and clear-to-send (CTS) frame exchange prior to each transmission by the AP 102 within the reuse periods, which may be used by other candidate shared AP 102 to determine whether to join the reuse period. Additionally, or alternatively, a candidate shared AP 102 may identify the other shared APs 102 already reusing (sharing) the medium by decoding a BSS Color field in a physical layer convergence protocol (PLCP) header of a PPDU (such as for high efficiency (HE) clients and above). Additionally, or alternatively, each shared AP 102 may precede its transmissions with a CTS-to-self (CTS2Self) frame, which may enable other APs 102 to detect its presence (and avoid issues arising due to a missing CTS). The classification techniques for shared APs 102 may be described in greater detail herein, including with reference to Figure 6.

[0086] In some examples, the described techniques may include NAV rules associated with open medium sharing. For example, the NAV rules may be indicated via the CSR configuration information 302. In some examples, the NAV rules may indicate that a shared AP 102 is to ignore a NAV of a sharing AP 102. Further, a candidate shared AP 102 may ignore the NAVs of other shared APs 102 if they are associated with relatively low interference (such as if their measured RS SI does not exceed a threshold). The classification techniques for the NAV rules may be described in greater detail herein, including with reference to Figure 7.

[0087] Figure 4 shows an example of a resource diagram 400 that supports coordinated spatial reuse with open medium sharing. The resource diagram 400 may include an AP 102-a and an AP 102-b (such as APs as described with reference to Figures 1 and 3). The resource diagram 400 may illustrate an example in which the APs 102 support an SP-based CSR Framework in accordance with techniques described herein.

[0088] In some examples, each AP 102 may define (indicate, classify, identify) various types of resource durations. For example, one or more resource durations may be defined as reuse periods 404, which may be resources (such as SPs or TXOPs) that are to be shared with other APs 102. A reuse period 404 may be an example of a reuse SP. a TXOP, or other duration associated with communications via the wireless medium. Additionally, one or more resource durations may be defined as one or more dedicated periods 406 (such as orthogonal SPs, dedicated SPs, or dedicated TXOPs). In some examples, “dedicated periods’" may refer to periods that are reserved for communications between the sharing AP 102 and clients (STAs 104) associated with the sharing AP 102 via the medium (in other words, dedicated periods may not be shared with shared APs 102). The reuse periods 404 may be announced using configuration signaling 402, such as management-level signaling, beacon frames, or other signaling. In some examples (such as if client classification is not used), an AP 102 may define reuse periods 404 (and may not define dedicated periods 406) and the AP 102 may share the medium for an entire duration in which it owns access to the medium. For example, an AP 102 may choose to share the medium during its entire medium ownership duration. In this implementation, the AP 102 may define reuse periods 404 without defining dedicated periods 406. Additionally, the sharing AP 102 may account for interference when sharing its medium-owned time by enforcing SP sharing rules to avoid high interference scenarios when another AP 102 determines to share the medium during the reuse periods 404.

[0089] As an illustrative example, an AP 102-a may gain access to a wireless medium (such as a wireless communication channel) for a duration 408 based on a contention procedure and may transmit configuration signaling 402-a (such as CSR configuration information 302 transmitted via a beacon frame or other signaling mechanism) indicating a reuse period 404-a during which the AP 102-a may share the medium with one or more other APs 102. The AP 102-b may receive the configuration signaling 402-a and may determine to use (share) the reuse period 404-a the medium concurrently with the AP 102-a. The AP 102-a also may define a dedicated period 406-a during which it reserves the medium for communications with its own associated client devices (STAs 104). Subsequently, the AP 102-b may gain access to the wireless medium for a duration 410 and may transmit configuration signaling 402 -b (such as CSR configuration information 302 transmitted via a beacon frame or other signaling mechanism) indicating a reuse period 404-b during which the AP 102-b may share the medium with one or more other APs 102. The AP 102-a may receive the configuration signaling 402 -b and may determine to use (share) the reuse period 404-b the medium concurrently with the AP 102-b. The AP 102-b also may define a dedicated period 406-b during which it reserves the medium for communications with its own associated client devices (STAs 104).

[0090] Figure 5 shows an example of a resource diagram 500 that supports coordinated spatial reuse with open medium sharing. The resource diagram 500 may include an AP 1 2-a and an AP 1 2-b (such as APs as described with reference to Figures 1, 3, and 4). The resource diagram 500 may illustrate an example in which the APs 102 support client classification techniques as described herein.

[0091] In some examples, each AP 102 may classify (categorize, group, divide) its associated clients (STAs 104) in accordance with various classification metrics. For example, an AP 102 may classify a client device as an “inner client,” which may refer to a client device that experiences (detects, measures) interference levels from other APs 102 (such as from neighboring APs) that are below a threshold value (which may be indicated via CSR configuration information). Alternatively, an AP 102 may classify a client device as an “outer client,” which may refer to a client device that experiences (detects, measures interference levels from other APs 102 that are above the threshold value (which may be indicated via CSR configuration information). In some examples, one or more first STAs 104 (such as inner clients of an area 502) may satisfy one or more first classification metrics, which may be associated with a first threshold distance, a first threshold interference level (from neighboring APs 102), a first threshold RSSI value, a first SNR threshold, or some other classification metric. One or more second STAs 104 (such as outer clients of an area 504) may satisfy one or more second classification metrics, which may be associated with a second threshold distance, a second threshold interference level (from neighboring APs 102), a second threshold RSSI value, a second SNR threshold, or some other classification metric (which may be different than the first threshold values).

[0092] In some examples, inner clients may be selected by an AP 102 for scheduled communications during the one or more reuse periods 404 (which may be shared with other APs 102). Moreover, outer clients may be selected by an AP for scheduled communications during dedicated periods 406 (such as orthogonal SPs) and may have dedicated medium access. In some additional, or alternative, examples, the APs 102 may enforce a stricter RSSI threshold to exclude all APs 102 that may cause relatively high interference (such as higher than a threshold value). Such RSSI values may be indicated by an AP 102 via a beacon frame that includes one or more medium sharing rules (such as CSR configuration information 302).

[0093] Figure 6 shows an example of a signaling scheme 600-a and a signaling scheme 600-b that supports coordinated spatial reuse with open medium sharing. The signaling schemes 600-a and 600-b may include an AP 102-a, an AP 102-b, and an AP 102-c (such as APs as described with reference to Figures 1 and 3-5). The described techniques may be performed by an AP 102 in accordance with one or more rules, which may be included in CSR configuration information transmitted by a sharing AP 102 or other signaling. That is, the one or more rules may indicate one or more thresholds, procedures, and other parameters described herein, which may be used by an AP 102 to access a wireless medium during a reuse period 404 and to perform communications via the wireless medium during the reuse period 404.

[0094] The signaling scheme 600-a may illustrate an example in which the APs 102 support RTS/CTS-based shared AP classification techniques as described herein. In such examples, the APs 102 may receive CSR configuration information that indicates one or more rules for sharing a medium (such as wireless communication channel). For example, the AP 102-a may be a sharing AP and may indicate a rule that each shared AP 102 (such as the AP 102-b and the AP 102-c) is to initiate any transmission (to their associated STAs 104) within a reuse period 404 with an RTS/CTS signaling exchange with its one or more client devices (STAs 104). The RTS/CTS exchange may enable a shared AP 102 (such as the AP 102 -b) that gains shared medium access to be detected (or “seen”) by other candidate shared APs 102 (such as the AP 102-c). In some examples, other candidate shared APs 102 may use the RTS frame to decode a BSSID of the shared AP 102 (the AP 102 transmitting the RTS frame) to determine whether they may concurrently access the shared medium with the sharing AP 102 and the shared AP 102. In other words, the RTS/CTS frame exchange may be performed by a shared AP 102 at a beginning of each transmission within the reuse period 404, which may be used by other candidate shared APs 102 to determine whether they also may use the reuse period 404.

[0095] As an illustrative example, the AP 102-a may gain access to a wireless medium (a wireless communication channel) and may be a sharing AP. The AP 102-b may be a shared AP and the AP 102-c may be a candidate shared AP. The AP 102-b and the AP 102-c may include the AP 102-a in their respective CSR pairing lists. Further, the AP 102-c may include the AP 102-b in its CSR pairing list. The AP 102-a may announce a reuse period 404 to other APs 102, and may transmit a PPDU (such as a downlink PPDU) to one or more target STAs 104. In response, the AP 102-a may receive a BA from the target STA(s) 104. The AP 102-b may determine to access the wireless medium during the reuse period 404. In accordance with one or more rules of the medium sharing, the AP 102-b may perform an RTS/CTS exchange (after a back off duration 610) with one or more STAs 104 prior to transmitting a PPDU and receiving a BA from the STA(s) 104. At 602 (after a first back off duration 610), the AP 102-c may detect the RTS frame of the AP 102-b and may determine (based on a BSSID of the AP 102-b) whether the AP 102-c may concurrently access a shared medium during the reuse period 404. At 604, the AP 102-c may decode the RTS, determine to concurrently access the shared medium with the AP 102-a and the AP 102-b. and (after a second back off duration 610) perform its own RTS/CTS exchange with one or more of its associated STAs 104 prior to transmitting a PPDU to the STA(s) 104 (in accordance with the one or more rules).

[0096] In some examples, when a candidate shared AP 102 detects an RTS/CTS exchange from another shared AP 102, the candidate shared AP 102 may utilize various options to determine whether it may concurrently access the medium during the reuse period 404. In a first option, the determination may be ID-based. That is, a monitoring candidate shared AP 102 may detect an RTS frame and may decodes the transmitting address (TA) field to obtain the BSSID. The candidate shared AP 102 may check the BSSID against its CSR pairing list. If the shared AP 102 is included in the CSR pairing list, the candidate shared AP 102 may determine to access the shared medium during the reuse period 404, otherwise, the candidate shared AP 102 may defer access.

[0097] In a second option, the determination may be RSSI-based. That is, the candidate shared AP 102 may rely on RSSI levels rather than checking if a shared AP 102 is in its CSR pairing list. If a measured RSSI of the RTS/CTS frames is high (higher than a threshold value), the candidate shared AP 102 may defer access, otherwise, the candidate AP 102 may determine to access the shared medium during the reuse period 404. In such examples, a fixed (or at least known) transmission power may be used for successful interpretation of RSSI of the RTS/CTS frames. In some examples, the RSSI-based determination may be RTS-based in which each AP 102 may agree on a unified RTS frame transmission power or may announce (signal) the transmission power as part of configuration signaling. Additionally, or alternatively, the RSSI-based determination may be CTS-based in which interference levels may be captured at the STAs 104 of other BSSs (such as neighboring BSSs), however. CTS transmission power may vary between STAs 104 and BSSs.

[0098] In some additional, or alternative, examples, the APs 102 may support PLCP-based shared AP classification techniques as described herein. In such examples, each candidate shared AP 102 may monitor the medium and may decode one or more frames from other shared APs 102 (such as decoding one or more physical layer convergence protocol headers of one or more frames). Further, a shared AP may not precede its PPDU with RTS/CTS frame exchange. Accordingly, instead of relying on RTS/CTS decoding to identify one or more shared APs 102 already reusing the medium, a candidate shared AP 102 may rely on one or more PLCP headers of one or more PPDUs. The PLCP header of each frame may include a BSS Color field (which may include a 6-bit identifier of the BSS) that is broadcasted by the AP 102. While each AP 102 is monitoring an RSSI level of a beacon of a given AP 102 (such as a neighboring AP), the AP 102 also may record the BSS Color value and may associate the BSS color value with a BSSID of the given AP 102.

[0099] Within the reuse period 404, and as part of an CSR open medium sharing operation (in accordance with one or more rules), a candidate shared AP 102 may decode the BSS color of each PPDU detected on the medium and may compare it to the list of known BSS color values and their equivalent BSSIDs. If a detected BSS color maps to one of the BSSTDs that are included in the CSR pairing list of the candidate AP 102, the candidate shared AP 102 may proceed with a transmission of a PPDU during the reuse period 404. Otherwise, the candidate shared AP 102 may set a corresponding NAV and may defer access to the medium.

[0100] The signaling scheme 600-b may illustrate an example in which the APs 102 support CTS2Self-based classification techniques as described herein. In such techniques, candidate shared APs 102 also may perform a procedure to detect a presence of an AP 102 that transmits a CTS2Self (CTS2S). Additionally, such techniques may be used to avoid missing CTS issues.

[0101] As an illustrative example, the AP 102-a may gain access to a wireless medium (a wireless communication channel) and may be a sharing AP. The AP 102-b may be a shared AP and the AP 102-c may be a candidate shared AP. The AP 102-b and the AP 102-c may include the AP 102-a in their respective CSR pairing lists. Further, the AP 102-c may include the AP 102-b in its CSR pairing list. The AP 102-a may announce a reuse period 404 to other APs 102, and may transmit a PPDU (such as a downlink PPDU) to one or more target STAs 104. In response, the AP 102-a may receive a BA from the target STA(s) 104. The AP 102-b may determine to access the wireless medium during the reuse period 404. In accordance with one or more rules of the medium sharing, the AP 102-b may transmit a CTS2S (after a back off duration 610) prior to transmitting a PPDU and receiving a BA from one or more STA(s) 104. At 606 (after a first back off duration 610), the AP 102-c may detect the CTS2S of the AP 102-b and may determine whether the AP 102-c may concurrently access a shared medium during the reuse period 404. At 608, the AP 102-c may decode the CTS2S, determine to concurrently access the shared medium with the AP 102-a and the AP 102-b and (after a second back off duration 610) transmit its own CTS2S prior to transmitting a PPDU to one or more STA(s) 104 (in accordance with the one or more rules).

[0102] Although, the signaling scheme 600-a and the signaling scheme 600-b show respective examples sequences of signaling, various sequences and implementations of the signaling may be supported. For example, some implementations may support decoding an initial portion of a frame (which contains the information for determining whether to access the medium, such as an initial field of a frame) then make a decision immediately. Some other implementations may not allow for that, and the receiver may keep monitoring the frame until the end to be able to decode and decide based on the received information.

[0103] Figure 7 shows an example of a signaling scheme 700 that supports coordinated spatial reuse with open medium sharing. The signaling scheme 700 may include an AP 102-a, an AP 102-b, an AP 102-c, and an AP 102-f (such as APs as described with reference to Figures 1 and 3-6). The described techniques may be performed by an AP 102 in accordance with one or more rules, which may be included that are included in CSR configuration information transmitted by a sharing AP 102 or other signaling. That is, the one or more rules may indicate one or more thresholds, procedures, and other rules described herein, which may be used by an AP 102 to access a wireless medium during a reuse period 404 and to perform communications via the wireless medium during the reuse period 404.

[0104] The signaling scheme 700 may illustrate an example in which the APs 102 support NAV rules associated with open medium sharing as described herein. In some examples, a NAV may refer to a duration during which an AP 102 expects to occupy a wireless communication channel for communications over the channel. The NAV rules may indicate that a sharing AP 102 (such as the AP 102-a) ignores (may not respect or acknowledge) the NAV of other shared APs 102 (such as the APs 102-b. 102-c, and 102-f). Additionally, the shared APs may ignore a NAV indicated by the sharing AP 102. In some examples, if a shared AP is already sharing the medium with a sharing AP 102, a candidate shared AP 102 may sense the medium and check one or more sharing criteria described herein. If the candidate shared AP 102 decides to defer access to the medium, the candidate shared AP 102 may set its NAV to expire by the end of a transmission of the shared AP 102.

[0105] As an illustrative example, the AP 102-a may gain access to a wireless medium (a wireless communication channel) and may be a sharing AP. The AP 102-b, the AP 102-c, and the AP 102-f may be candidate shared APs may all be configured to access the medium concurrently with the AP 102-a. The AP 102-b and the AP 102-f may be configured to concurrently access the medium, but neither the AP 102-b nor the AP 102-f may be configured to concurrently access the medium with the AP 102-c and vice-versa. Such decisions may be made based on RS SI measurements, RTS-based RSSI measurements, decoded RTS information, or other mechanisms described herein.

[0106] The AP 102-a may announce a reuse period 404 to other APs 102, and may transmit a first PPDU (such as a downlink PPDU) to one or more target STAs 104. In response, the AP 102-a may receive a first BA from the target STA(s) 104. The AP 102-b may determine to access the wireless medium during the reuse period 404. In accordance with one or more rules of the medium sharing, the AP 102-b may perform an RTS/CTS exchange (after a back off duration 712) with one or more STAs 104 prior to transmitting a PPDU and receiving a BA from the STA(s) 104. At 702 (after a first back off duration 712), the AP 102-c may detect the RTS frame of the AP 102-b and may determine whether the AP 102-c may concurrently access the shared medium with the AP 102-b. At 704, the AP 102-c may decode the RTS, determine to defer access to the medium, and set its NAV to expire accordingly (such as after the AP 102-b receives the BA).

[0107] Concurrently, at 706 (after a first back off duration 712), the AP 102-f may detect the RTS frame of the AP 102-b and may determine whether the AP 102-f may concurrently access the shared medium with the AP 102-b. At 708, the AP 102-f may decode the RTS, determine to concurrently access the shared medium with the AP 102-a and the AP 1 2-b, and (after a second back off duration 712) perform its own RTS/CTS exchange with one or more of its associated STAs 104 prior to transmitting a PPDU to the STA(s) 104 (in accordance with the one or more rules). At 710, the AP 102-c may detect the RTS frame of the AP 102-f and may determine whether the AP 102-c may concurrently access the shared medium with the AP 102-f. The AP 102-c may decode the RTS, determine to further defer access to the medium, and may set (reset, extend) its NAV to expire accordingly (such as after the AP 102-f receives the BA). Subsequently (after the NAV of the AP 102-c expires and a second back off duration 712), the AP 102-c may determine to concurrently access the shared medium with the AP 102-a, and perform its own RTS/CTS exchange with one or more of its associated STAs 104 prior to transmitting a PPDU and receiving a BA from the STA(s) 104 (in accordance with the one or more rules).

[0108] Figure 8 shows an example of a process flow 800 that supports CSR with open medium sharing. Aspects of the process flow 800 may implement, or be implemented by, aspects of the wireless communication network 100, the PPDU 200, the signaling diagram 300, the resource diagram 400, the resource diagram 500, the signaling schemes 600, and the signaling scheme 700 as described herein with reference to Figures 1-7. For example, the process flow 800 may include an AP 102-a in communication with one or more one or more STAs 104-a and an AP 102-b. Further the AP 102-b may be in communication with one or more STAs 104-b. In some examples, the process flow 800 may illustrate utilizing open medium sharing techniques as described herein.

[0109] In the following description of the process flow 800, the operations may be performed (such as reported or provided) in a different order than the order shown, or the operations performed by the example devices may be performed in different orders or at different times. Some operations also may be omitted from the process flow 800, or other operations may be added to the process flow 800. Further, although some operations or signaling may be shown to occur at different times for discussion purposes, these operations may actually occur at the same time or at least partially concurrently.

[0110] At 802, the AP 102-a (the sharing AP) may perform a channel access procedure to obtain access to a wireless communication channel (such as a wireless medium). In some examples, the AP 102-a may be a first AP to contend for access to the wireless communication channel. In some examples, the AP 102-a may be referred to as a sharing AP. At 804, the AP 102-a may receive, from an AP 102-b (a shared AP) or some other AP, an indication of aNAV associated with the AP 102-b or some other AP (such as a duration corresponding to a NAV setting at the AP 102-a).

[0111] At 806. the AP 102-a may transmit CSR configuration information (such as CSR configuration information 302) indicating one or more reuse periods (such as reuse periods 404) that the AP 102-a is sharing access to the wireless communication channel, which may be received by the AP 102-b (such as a candidate shared AP or a shared AP). In some examples, the CSR configuration information may further indicate one or more rules to enable concurrent communication via the wireless communication channel during at least a portion of the one or more reuse periods. In some examples, the CSR configuration information may be transmitted in accordance with ignoring the indication of the NAV (at 804). In some examples, the CSR configuration information may be transmitted via a beacon frame.

[0112] The one or more rules may include an indication of a signal strength threshold (such as an RS SI threshold) associated with eligibility for a wireless device (and the sharing access point) to concurrently transmit within the one or more reuse periods. Additionally, or alternatively, the one or more rules may indicate that one or more shared APs are to perform a contention procedure prior to accessing to the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods. Additionally, or alternatively, the one or more rules may indicate that one or more shared APs are to transmit a request (such as an RTS frame) over the wireless communication channel and to receive a response (such as a CTS frame) in accordance with the request prior to transmission of a message via the wireless communication channel. In some examples, the request and response sequence may be described in terms of an initial control frame and an initial response frame. The initial control frame may be an RTS frame or some other control frame, and the initial response frame may be a CTS frame or some other control frame sent in response to the initial control frame.

[0113] In some examples, the one or more rules may indicate that the one or more shared APs are to decode a request, a response, or both associated with one or more other APs to determine whether to attempt to access the wireless communication channel. In some examples, the determination of whether to access the channel may be based on an address field (such as a BSSID field) of the request, an address field of the response, an RS SI of the request, an RS SI of the response, or any combination thereof. Additionally, or alternatively, the one or more rules may indicate that one or more shared APs are to decode one or more PLCP headers of one or more frames communicated via the wireless communication channel prior to attempting to access the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods. Additionally, or alternatively, the one or more rules may indicate that one or more shared APs are to transmit a self-request message (such as a CTS2S) indicating that access has been obtained to the wireless communication channel prior to transmission of a message via the wireless communication channel.

[0114] At 808, the AP 102-b may receive an indication of a NAV associated with the AP 102-a (such as a duration corresponding to a NAV setting at the AP 102-b). Additionally, or alternatively, the AP 102-b may receive a second indication of a second NAV associated with one or more other APs (not shown).

[0115] At 810, the AP 102-b (a candidate shared AP, a shared AP) may perform a channel access procedure to access the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods in accordance with the one or more rules. In some examples, the channel access procedure may include measuring a received signal strength (an RSSI) associated with one or more signals (such as a beacon frame) transmitted by the AP 102-a, and the AP 102-b may performing the channel access procedure to access the wireless communication channel in accordance with the received signal strength satisfying a signal strength threshold. Additionally, or alternatively, the channel access procedure may include performing a contention procedure prior to accessing to the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods. Additionally, or alternatively, the channel access procedure may include transmitting, to one or more STAs, a request (such as an RTS frame) over the wireless communication channel and receiving, prior to transmitting a message, a response from the STA(s) (such as a CTS frame) in response to the request.

[0116] Additionally, or alternatively, the channel access procedure may include decoding one or more PLCP headers of one or more frames communicated via the wireless communication channel by one or more third access points (not shown) prior to attempting to access the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods. Additionally, or alternatively, the channel access procedure may include transmitting a self-request message (such as a CTS2S) indicating that the AP 102-b has obtained access to the wireless communication channel. In some examples, the channel access procedure to access the wireless communication channel may be performed in accordance with ignoring the indication of the first channel occupancy duration (at 808). Alternatively, the AP 102-b may determine whether to access the wireless communication channel in accordance with the second NAV indicated by one or more other APs and which one of the one or more other APs are detected using the wireless communication channel.

[0117] At 812, the AP 102-a may perform one or more frame exchanges with one or more STAs associated with the AP 102-a over the wireless communication channel during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with the CSR configuration information. Performing a frame exchange, in some examples, may include communicating (such as transmitting, conveying, outputting, broadcasting, receiving, obtaining, or a combination thereof) data, one or more control messages, or other signaling with another device (such as a STA 104-a or other wireless communication device). In some examples, the one or more reuse periods may not overlap with the one or more dedicated periods. In some examples, the AP 102-a may perform one or more first frame exchanges with one or more first STAs during the one or more reuse periods, where the one or more first STAs may satisfy a first classification metric. Additionally, the AP 102-a may perform one or more second frame exchanges with one or more second STAs during one or more dedicated periods (such as orthogonal SPs) that are different than the one or more reuse periods, where the one or more second STAs may satisfy a second classification metric. In some examples, the AP 102-a may perform one or more frame exchanges during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with the one or more rules (such as defined via the CSR configuration information).

[0118] At 814, the AP 102-b may perform one or more frame exchanges with one or more STAs associated with the AP 102-b over the wireless communication channel during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with successfully accessing the wireless communication channel via the channel access procedure. Performing a frame exchange, in some examples, may include communicating (such as transmitting, conveying, outputting, broadcasting, receiving, obtaining, or a combination thereof) data, one or more control messages, or other signaling with another device (such as a STA 104-b or other wireless communication device). In some examples, the AP 102-b may perform one or more frame exchanges with one or more first STAs during the one or more reuse periods, where the one or more first STAs may satisfy a first classification metric. In some examples, the AP 102-b may perform one or more frame exchanges during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods is in accordance with performing the contention procedure. Additionally, or alternatively, the AP 102-b may perform one or more frame exchanges during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with decoding the one or more PLCP headers associated with one or more frames. Additionally, or alternatively, the AP 102-b may perform one or more frame exchanges during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with the self-request message. In some examples, the frame exchanges at 812 and 814 may be concurrent (communication of a first frame may at least partially overlap, or completely overlap, in time with communication of a second frame, in a same frequency band or at least partially overlapping in frequency). For example, concurrent communication via the wireless communication channel may include a first set of one or more frame exchanges performed by the AP 102-a during a first duration and a second set of one or more frame exchanges performed by at least one shared AP (the AP 102-b) during at least a portion of the first duration.

[0119] Figure 9 shows a block diagram of an example wireless communication device 900 that supports coordinated spatial reuse with open medium sharing. In some examples, the wireless communication device 900 is configured to perform the processes 1000, 1100, 1200, and 1300 described with reference to Figures 10, 11, 12, and 13. respectively. The wireless communication device 900 may include one or more chips, SoCs, chipsets, packages, components or devices that individually or collectively constitute or include a processing system. The processing system may interface with other components of the wireless communication device 900, and may generally process information (such as inputs or signals) received from such other components and output information (such as outputs or signals) to such other components. In some aspects, an example chip may include a processing system, a first interface to output or transmit information and a second interface to receive or obtain information. For example, the first interface may refer to an interface between the processing system of the chip and a transmission component, such that the wireless communication device 900 may transmit the information output from the chip. In such an example, the second interface may refer to an interface between the processing system of the chip and a reception component, such that the wireless communication device 900 may receive information that is then passed to the processing system. In some such examples, the first interface also may obtain information, such as from the transmission component, and the second interface also may output information, such as to the reception component.

[0120] The processing system of the wireless communication device 900 includes processor (or “processing’") circuitry in the form of one or multiple processors, microprocessors, processing units (such as central processing units (CPUs), graphics processing units (GPUs), neural processing units (NPUs) (also referred to as neural network processors or deep learning processors (DLPs)), or digital signal processors (DSPs)), processing blocks, application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC), programmable logic devices (PLDs) (such as field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs)), or other discrete gate or transistor logic or circuitry (all of which may be generally referred to herein individually as “processors” or collectively as “the processor” or “the processor circuitry”). One or more of the processors may be individually or collectively configurable or configured to perform various functions or operations described herein. The processing system may further include memory circuitry in the form of one or more memory devices, memory blocks, memory elements or other discrete gate or transistor logic or circuitry, each of which may include tangible storage media such as randomaccess memory (RAM) or ROM, or combinations thereof (all of which may be generally referred to herein individually as “memories” or collectively as “the memory” or “the memory circuitry”). One or more of the memories may be coupled with one or more of the processors and may individually or collectively store processor-executable code that, when executed by one or more of the processors, may configure one or more of the processors to perform various functions or operations described herein. Additionally, or alternatively, in some examples, one or more of the processors may be preconfigured to perform various functions or operations described herein without requiring configuration by software. The processing system may further include or be coupled with one or more modems (such as a Wi-Fi (such as IEEE compliant) modem or a cellular (such as 3GPP 4G LTE. 5G or 6G compliant) modem). In some implementations, one or more processors of the processing system include or implement one or more of the modems. The processing system may further include or be coupled with multiple radios (collectively “the radio”), multiple RF chains or multiple transceivers, each of which may in turn be coupled with one or more of multiple antennas. In some implementations, one or more processors of the processing system include or implement one or more of the radios, RF chains or transceivers.

[0121] In some examples, the wireless communication device 900 can be configurable or configured for use in an AP, such as the AP 102 described with reference to Figure 1. In some other examples, the wireless communication device 900 can be an AP that includes such a processing system and other components including multiple antennas. The wireless communication device 900 is capable of transmitting and receiving wireless communications in the form of, for example, wireless packets. For example, the wireless communication device 900 can be configurable or configured to transmit and receive packets in the form of physical layer PPDUs and MPDUs conforming to one or more of the IEEE 802. 11 family of wireless communication protocol standards. In some other examples, the wireless communication device 900 can be configurable or configured to transmit and receive signals and communications conforming to one or more 3GPP specifications including those for 5G NR or 6G. In some examples, the wireless communication device 900 also includes or can be coupled with one or more application processors which may be further coupled with one or more other memories. In some examples, the wireless communication device 900 further includes at least one external network interface coupled with the processing system that enables communication with a core network or backhaul network that enables the wireless communication device 900 to gain access to external networks including the Internet.

[0122] The wireless communication device 900 includes a channel access component 925, a medium sharing component 930, and a frame exchange component 93 . Portions of one or more of the channel access component 925, the medium sharing component 930, and the frame exchange component 935 may be implemented at least in part in hardware or firmware. For example, one or more of the channel access component 925, the medium sharing component 930, and the frame exchange component 935 may be implemented at least in part by at least a processor or a modem. In some examples, portions of one or more of the channel access component 925, the medium sharing component 930, and the frame exchange component 935 may be implemented at least in part by a processor and software in the form of processorexecutable code stored in memory.

[0123] The wireless communication device 900 may support wireless communications in accordance with examples as disclosed herein. The channel access component 925 is configurable or configured to perform a channel access procedure to obtain access to a wireless communication channel. The medium sharing component 930 is configurable or configured to transmit coordinated spatial reuse configuration information indicating one or more rules to enable concurrent communication via the wireless communication channel during at least a portion of one or more reuse periods, where the coordinated spatial reuse configuration information is transmitted before, during, or after the channel access procedure.

[0124] In some examples, the coordinated spatial reuse configuration information further indicates the one or more reuse periods that the sharing access point is sharing access to the wireless communication channel.

[0125] In some examples, the frame exchange component 935 is configurable or configured to perform one or more frame exchanges with one or more stations associated with the sharing access point over the wireless communication channel during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with the coordinated spatial reuse configuration information.

[0126] In some examples, the frame exchange component 935 is configurable or configured to perform one or more frame exchanges with one or more stations associated with the sharing access point during one or more dedicated periods, where the one or more reuse periods do not overlap with the one or more dedicated periods.

[0127] In some examples, the one or more rules includes an indication of a signal strength threshold associated with eligibility for a wireless device and the sharing access point to concurrently transmit within the one or more reuse periods.

[0128] In some examples, the frame exchange component 935 is configurable or configured to perform one or more first frame exchanges with one or more first stations during the one or more reuse periods, where the one or more first stations satisfy a first classification metric. In some examples, the frame exchange component 935 is configurable or configured to perform one or more second frame exchanges with one or more second stations during one or more dedicated periods that are different than the one or more reuse periods, where the one or more second stations satisfy a second classification metric.

[0129] In some examples, the one or more rules indicate that one or more shared access points are to perform a contention procedure prior to accessing to the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods, and the medium sharing component 930 is configurable or configured to perform one or more frame exchanges with one or more stations during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with the one or more rules.

[0130] In some examples, the one or more rules indicate to transmit a request over the wireless communication channel and to receive a response in accordance with the request prior to attempting to access the wireless communication channel. In some examples, the one or more rules indicate that the one or more shared access points are to decode a request, a response, or both associated with one or more other access points to determine whether to attempt to access the wireless communication channel, the determination based on an address field of the request, an address field of the response, a received signal strength indicator of the request, a received signal strength indicator of the response, or any combination thereof.

[0131] In some examples, the one or more rules indicate that the one or more shared access points are to transmit a self-request message indicating that access has been obtained to the wireless communication channel prior to transmission of a message via the wireless communication channel.

[0132] In some examples, performing one or more first frame exchanges with one or more stations during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with the one or more rules.

[0133] In some examples, the one or more rules enable the concurrent communication by providing each of the sharing access point and a shared access point with shared access to the wireless communication channel to perform one or more frame exchanges during a same duration.

[0134] Additionally, or alternatively, the wireless communication device 900 may support wireless communications in accordance with examples as disclosed herein. In some examples, the medium sharing component 930 is configurable or configured to receive, from a sharing access point, coordinated spatial reuse configuration information indicating one or more rules to enable concurrent communication via a wireless communication channel during at least a portion of one or more reuse periods. In some examples, the channel access component 925 is configurable or configured to perform a channel access procedure to access the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods in accordance with the one or more rules. The frame exchange component 935 is configurable or configured to perform one or more frame exchanges with one or more stations associated with the shared access point over the wireless communication channel during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with successfully accessing the wireless communication channel via the channel access procedure.

[0135] In some examples, the coordinated spatial reuse configuration information further indicates the one or more reuse periods that the sharing access point is sharing access to the wireless communication channel.

[0136] In some examples, the one or more rules includes an indication of a signal strength threshold associated with eligibility for a wireless device and the sharing access point to concurrently transmit within the one or more reuse periods, and the medium sharing component 930 is configurable or configured to measure a received signal strength associated with one or more signals transmitted by the sharing access point. In some examples, the one or more rules includes an indication of a signal strength threshold associated with eligibility for a wireless device and the sharing access point to concurrently transmit within the one or more reuse periods, and the channel access component 925 is configurable or configured to perform the channel access procedure to access the wireless communication channel in accordance with the received signal strength satisfying the signal strength threshold.

[0137] In some examples, the frame exchange component 935 is configurable or configured to perform one or more first frame exchanges with one or more first stations during the one or more reuse periods, where the one or more first stations satisfy a first classification metric.

[0138] In some examples, the one or more rules indicate to perform a contention procedure prior to accessing to the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods, and the medium sharing component 930 is configurable or configured to perform the channel access procedure that is the contention procedure prior to accessing to the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods. In some examples, the one or more rules indicate to perform a contention procedure prior to accessing to the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods, and the frame exchange component 935 is configurable or configured to perform the one or more frame exchanges during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods is in accordance with performing the contention procedure.

[0139] In some examples, the one or more rules indicate to transmit a request over the wireless communication channel and to receive a response from a station in accordance with the request prior to performing the one or more frame exchanges via the wireless communication channel. In some examples, the one or more rules indicate to decode a request, a response, or both associated with one or more other access points to determine whether to attempt to access the wireless communication channel, the determination based on an address field of the request, an address field of the response, a received signal strength indicator of the request, a received signal strength indicator of the response, or any combination thereof. In some examples, to support the contention procedure, the channel access component 925 is configurable or configured to transmit, to a first station of the one or more stations, the request over the wireless communication channel and receive, prior to performing the one or more frame exchanges, the response from the first station in response to the request.

[0140] In some examples, the one or more rules indicate to transmit a self-request message indicating that access has been obtained to the wireless communication channel prior to performing the one or more frame exchanges via the wireless communication channel. In some examples, to support performing the channel access procedure, the channel access component 925 is configurable or configured to transmit the self-request message indicating that the shared access point has obtained access to the wireless communication channel. In some examples, to support performing the channel access procedure, the frame exchange component 935 is configurable or configured to perform the one or more frame exchanges during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with the self-request message.

[0141] In some examples, the one or more rules indicate to decode a physical layer convergence protocol header of one or more frames communicated via the wireless communication channel prior to attempting to access the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods. In some examples, to support performing the channel access procedure, the channel access component 925 is configurable or configured to decode one or more physical layer convergence protocol headers of one or more frames communicate via the wireless communication channel by one or more third access points prior to attempting to access the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods. In some examples, to support performing the channel access procedure, the frame exchange component 935 is configurable or configured to perform the one or more frame exchanges during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with decoding the one or more physical layer convergence protocol headers.

[0142] In some examples, the channel access component 925 is configurable or configured to receive an indication of a network allocation vector from the sharing access point. In some examples, the channel access component 925 is configurable or configured to where the channel access procedure to access the wireless communication channel is performed in accordance with ignoring the indication of the network allocation vector.

[0143] In some examples, the channel access component 925 is configurable or configured to receive a second indication of a second network allocation vector associated with one or more third access points. In some examples, the channel access component 925 is configurable or configured to determine whether to access the wireless communication channel in accordance with the second network allocation vector and which one or more other access points are detected using the wireless communication channel.

[0144] In some examples, the one or more rules enable the concurrent communication by providing each of the sharing access point and a shared access point with shared access to the wireless communication channel to perform one or more frame exchanges during a same duration.

[0145] Figure 10 shows a flowchart illustrating an example process 1000 performable by or at a sharing access point that supports coordinated spatial reuse with open medium sharing. The operations of the process 1000 may be implemented by a sharing access point or its components as described herein. For example, the process 1000 may be performed by a wireless communication device, such as the wireless communication device 900 described with reference to Figure 9, operating as or within a wireless AP. Tn some examples, the process 1000 may be performed by a wireless AP, such as one of the APs 102 described with reference to Figure 1.

[0146] In some examples, in 1005, the sharing access point may perform a channel access procedure to obtain access to a wireless communication channel. The operations of 1005 may be performed in accordance with examples as disclosed herein. In some implementations, aspects of the operations of 1005 may be performed by a channel access component 925 as described with reference to Figure 9.

[0147] In some examples, in 1010, the sharing access point may transmit coordinated spatial reuse configuration information indicating one or more rules to enable concurrent communication via the wireless communication channel during at least a portion of one or more reuse periods. In some examples, the coordinated spatial reuse configuration information may be transmitted before, during, or after the channel access procedure. The operations of 1010 may be performed in accordance with examples as disclosed herein. In some implementations, aspects of the operations of 1010 may be performed by a medium sharing component 930 as described with reference to Figure 9.

[0148] Figure 11 shows a flowchart illustrating an example process 1100 performable by or at a sharing access point that supports coordinated spatial reuse with open medium sharing. The operations of the process 1100 may be implemented by a sharing access point or its components as described herein. For example, the process 1100 may be performed by a wireless communication device, such as the wireless communication device 900 described with reference to Figure 9, operating as or within a wireless AP. In some examples, the process 1100 may be performed by a wireless AP, such as one of the APs 102 described with reference to Figure 1.

[0149] In some examples, in 1105, the sharing access point may perform a channel access procedure to obtain access to a wireless communication channel. The operations of 1105 may be performed in accordance with examples as disclosed herein. In some implementations, aspects of the operations of 1105 may be performed by a channel access component 925 as described with reference to Figure 9.

[0150] In some examples, in 1110, the sharing access point may transmit coordinated spatial reuse configuration information indicating one or more rules to enable concurrent communication via the wireless communication channel during at least a portion of one or more reuse periods. In some examples, the coordinated spatial reuse configuration information may be transmitted before, during, or after the channel access procedure. The operations of 1110 may be performed in accordance with examples as disclosed herein. In some implementations, aspects of the operations of 1110 may be performed by a medium sharing component 930 as described with reference to Figure 9.

[0151] In some examples, in 1115, the sharing access point may perform one or more frame exchanges with one or more stations associated with a sharing access point over the wireless communication channel during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with the coordinated spatial reuse configuration information. The operations of 1115 may be performed in accordance with examples as disclosed herein. In some implementations, aspects of the operations of 1115 may be performed by a frame exchange component 935 as descnbed with reference to Figure 9.

[0152] Figure 12 shows a flowchart illustrating an example process 1200 performable by or at a shared access point that supports coordinated spatial reuse with open medium sharing. The operations of the process 1200 may be implemented by a shared access point or its components as described herein. For example, the process 1200 may be performed by a wireless communication device, such as the wireless communication device 900 described with reference to Figure 9, operating as or within a wireless AP. In some examples, the process 1200 may be performed by a wireless AP, such as one of the APs 102 described with reference to Figure 1.

[0153] In some examples, in 1205, the shared access point may receive, from a sharing access point, coordinated spatial reuse configuration information indicating one or more rules to enable concurrent communication via a wireless communication channel during at least a portion of one or more reuse periods. The operations of 1205 may be performed in accordance with examples as disclosed herein. In some implementations, aspects of the operations of 1205 may be performed by a medium sharing component 930 as described with reference to Figure 9.

[0154] In some examples, in 1210, the shared access point may perform a channel access procedure to access the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods in accordance with the one or more rules. The operations of 1210 may be performed in accordance with examples as disclosed herein. In some implementations, aspects of the operations of 1210 may be performed by a channel access component 925 as described with reference to Figure 9.

[0155] In some examples, in 1215, the shared access point may perform one or more frame exchanges with one or more stations associated with a shared access point over the wireless communication channel during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with successfully accessing the wireless communication channel via the channel access procedure. The operations of 1215 may be performed in accordance with examples as disclosed herein. In some implementations, aspects of the operations of 1215 may be performed by a frame exchange component 935 as described with reference to Figure 9.

[0156] Figure 13 shows a flowchart illustrating an example process 1300 performable by or at a shared access point that supports coordinated spatial reuse with open medium sharing. The operations of the process 1300 may be implemented by a shared access point or its components as described herein. For example, the process 1300 may be performed by a wireless communication device, such as the wireless communication device 900 described with reference to Figure 9, operating as or within a wireless AP. In some examples, the process 1300 may be performed by a wireless AP, such as one of the APs 102 described with reference to Figure 1.

[0157] In some examples, in 1305, the shared access point may measure a received signal strength associated with one or more signals transmitted by a sharing access point. The operations of 1305 may be performed in accordance with examples as disclosed herein. In some implementations, aspects of the operations of 1305 may be performed by a medium sharing component 930 as described with reference to Figure 9.

[0158] In some examples, in 1310, the shared access point may receive, from the sharing access point, coordinated spatial reuse configuration information indicating one or more rules to enable concurrent communication via a wireless communication channel during at least a portion of one or more reuse periods. The operations of 1310 may be performed in accordance with examples as disclosed herein. In some implementations, aspects of the operations of 1310 may be performed by a medium sharing component 930 as described with reference to Figure 9.

[0159] In some examples, in 1315, the shared access point may perform a channel access procedure to access the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods in accordance with the one or more rules. The operations of 1315 may be performed in accordance with examples as disclosed herein. In some implementations, aspects of the operations of 1315 may be performed by a channel access component 925 as described with reference to Figure 9.

[0160] In some examples, in 1320, the shared access point may perform the channel access procedure to access the wireless communication channel in accordance with the received signal strength satisfying the signal strength threshold. The operations of 1320 may be performed in accordance with examples as disclosed herein. In some implementations, aspects of the operations of 1320 may be performed by a channel access component 925 as described with reference to Figure 9.

[0161] In some examples, in 1325, the shared access point may perform one or more frame exchanges with one or more stations associated with a shared access point over the wireless communication channel during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with successfully accessing the wireless communication channel via the channel access procedure. The operations of 1325 may be performed in accordance with examples as disclosed herein. In some implementations, aspects of the operations of 1325 may be performed by a frame exchange component 935 as described with reference to Figure 9.

[0162] Implementation examples are described in the following numbered clauses:

[0163] Aspect 1 : A method for wireless communications at a sharing access point, comprising: performing a channel access procedure to obtain access to a wireless communication channel; and transmitting coordinated spatial reuse configuration information indicating one or more rules to enable concurrent communication via the wireless communication channel during at least a portion of one or more reuse periods. [0164] Aspect 2: The method of aspect 1 , where the coordinated spatial reuse configuration information further indicates the one or more reuse periods that the sharing access point is sharing access to the wireless communication channel.

[0165] Aspect 3: The method of any of aspects 1-2. further comprising: performing one or more frame exchanges with one or more stations associated with the sharing access point over the wireless communication channel during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with the coordinated spatial reuse configuration information.

[0166] Aspect 4: The method of any of aspects 1-3. further comprising: performing one or more frame exchanges with one or more stations associated with the sharing access point during one or more dedicated periods, where the one or more reuse periods do not overlap with the one or more dedicated periods.

[0167] Aspect 5: The method of any of aspects 1-4, where the one or more rules includes an indication of a signal strength threshold associated with eligibility- for a wireless device and the sharing access point to concurrently transmit within the one or more reuse periods.

[0168] Aspect 6: The method of any of aspects 1-5, further comprising: performing one or more first frame exchanges with one or more first stations during the one or more reuse periods, where the one or more first stations satisfy a first classification metric; and performing one or more second frame exchanges with one or more second stations during one or more dedicated periods that are different than the one or more reuse periods, where the one or more second stations satisfy' a second classification metric.

[0169] Aspect 7: The method of any of aspects 1-6, where the one or more rules indicate that one or more shared access points are to perform a contention procedure prior to accessing to the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods, the method further comprising: performing one or more frame exchanges with one or more stations during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with the one or more rules.

[0170] Aspect 8: The method of aspect 7, where the one or more rules indicate to transmit a request over the wireless communication channel and to receive a response in accordance with the request prior to attempting to access the wireless communication channel; and the one or more rules indicate that the one or more shared access points are to decode a request, a response, or both associated with one or more other access points to determine whether to attempt to access the wireless communication channel, the determination based at least in part on an address field of the request, an address field of the response, a received signal strength indicator of the request, a received signal strength indicator of the response, or any combination thereof.

[0171] Aspect 9: The method of aspect 7, where the one or more rules indicate that the one or more shared access points are to transmit a self-request message indicating that access has been obtained to the wireless communication channel prior to transmission of a message via the wireless communication channel.

[0172] Aspect 10: The method of any of aspects 1-9, where the one or more rules indicate that one or more shared access points are to decode a physical layer convergence protocol header of one or more frames communicated via the wireless communication channel prior to attempting to access the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods, and the processing system is further configured to cause the sharing access point to performing one or more first frame exchanges with one or more stations during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with the one or more rules.

[0173] Aspect 11 : The method of any of aspects 1-10, where the one or more rules enable the concurrent communication by providing each of the sharing access point and a shared access point with shared access to the wireless communication channel to perform one or more frame exchanges during a same duration.

[0174] Aspect 12: A method for wireless communications at a shared access point, comprising: receiving, from a sharing access point, coordinated spatial reuse configuration information indicating one or more rules to enable concurrent communication via a wireless communication channel during at least a portion of one or more reuse periods; performing a channel access procedure to access the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods in accordance with the one or more rules; and performing one or more frame exchanges with one or more stations associated with the shared access point over the wireless communication channel during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with successfully accessing the wireless communication channel via the channel access procedure.

[0175] Aspect 13: The method of aspect 12, where the coordinated spatial reuse configuration information further indicates the one or more reuse periods that the sharing access point is sharing access to the wireless communication channel.

[0176] Aspect 14: The method of any of aspects 12-13, where the one or more rules includes an indication of a signal strength threshold associated with eligibility for a wireless device and the sharing access point to concurrently transmit within the one or more reuse periods, the method further comprising: measuring a received signal strength associated with one or more signals transmitted by the sharing access point: and performing the channel access procedure to access the wireless communication channel in accordance with the received signal strength satisfying the signal strength threshold.

[0177] Aspect 15: The method of any of aspects 12-14, further comprising: performing one or more first frame exchanges ith one or more first stations during the one or more reuse periods, where the one or more first stations satisfy’ a first classification metric.

[0178] Aspect 16: The method of any of aspects 12-15, where the one or more rules indicate to perform a contention procedure prior to accessing to the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods, the method further comprising: performing the channel access procedure that is the contention procedure prior to accessing to the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods; and performing the one or more frame exchanges during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods is in accordance with performing the contention procedure.

[0179] Aspect 17: The method of aspect 16, further comprising: the one or more rules indicate to transmit a request over the wireless communication channel and to receive a response from a station in accordance with the request prior to performing the one or more frame exchanges via the wireless communication channel; the one or more rules indicate to decode a request, a response, or both associated with one or more other access points to determine whether to attempt to access the wireless communication channel, the determination based at least in part on an address field of the request, an address field of the response, a received signal strength indicator of the request, a received signal strength indicator of the response, or any combination thereof; and performing the contention procedure includes transmitting, to a first station of the one or more stations, the request over the wireless communication channel and transmitting, prior to performing the one or more frame exchanges, the response from the first station in response to the request.

[0180] Aspect 18: The method of aspect 16, where the one or more rules indicate to transmit a self-request message indicating that access has been obtained to the wireless communication channel prior to performing the one or more frame exchanges via the wireless communication channel, and where, to perform the channel access procedure, and where performing the channel access procedure includes: transmitting the selfrequest message indicating that the shared access point has obtained access to the wireless communication channel; and performing the one or more frame exchanges during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with the selfrequest message.

[0181] Aspect 19: The method of any of aspects 12-18, where the one or more rules indicate to decode a physical layer convergence protocol header of one or more frames communicated via the wireless communication channel prior to attempting to access the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods, and where performing the channel access procedure includes: decoding one or more physical layer convergence protocol headers of one or more frames communicated via the wireless communication channel by one or more third access points prior to attempting to access the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods; and performing the one or more frame exchanges during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with decoding the one or more physical layer convergence protocol headers.

[0182] Aspect 20: The method of any of aspects 12-19. further comprising: receiving an indication of a netw ork allocation vector from the sharing access point, where the channel access procedure to access the wireless communication channel is performed in accordance with ignoring the indication of the netw ork allocation vector. [0183] Aspect 21 : The method of aspect 20, further comprising: receiving a second indication of a second network allocation vector associated with one or more third access points; and determining whether to access the wireless communication channel in accordance with the second network allocation vector and which one or more other access points are detected using the wireless communication channel.

[0184] Aspect 22: The method of any of aspects 12-21, where the one or more rules enable the concurrent communication by providing each of the sharing access point and the shared access point with shared access to the wireless communication channel to perform one or more frame exchanges during a same duration.

[0185] Aspect 23: A sharing access point for wireless communications, comprising one or more memories storing processor-executable code, and one or more processors coupled with the one or more memories and individually or collectively operable to execute the code to cause the sharing access point to perform a method of any of aspects 1-11.

[0186] Aspect 24: A sharing access point for wireless communications, comprising at least one means for performing a method of any of aspects 1-1 1.

[0187] Aspect 25: A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing code for wireless communications, the code comprising instructions executable by one or more processors to perform a method of any of aspects 1-11.

[0188] Aspect 26: A shared access point for wireless communications, comprising one or more memories storing processor-executable code, and one or more processors coupled with the one or more memories and individually or collectively operable to execute the code to cause the shared access point to perform a method of any of aspects 12-22.

[0189] Aspect 27: A shared access point for wireless communications, comprising at least one means for performing a method of any of aspects 12-22.

[0190] Aspect 28: A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing code for wireless communications, the code comprising instructions executable by one or more processors to perform a method of any of aspects 12-22. [0191] As used herein, “satisfying a threshold” may, depending on the context, refer to a value being greater than the threshold, greater than or equal to the threshold, less than the threshold, less than or equal to the threshold, equal to the threshold, not equal to the threshold, or the like

[0192] As used herein, the term “determine” or “determining” encompasses a wide variety of actions and, therefore, “determining” can include calculating, computing, processing, deriving, estimating, investigating, looking up (such as via looking up in a table, a database, or another data structure), inferring, ascertaining, or measuring. among other possibilities. Also, “determining” can include receiving (such as receiving information), accessing (such as accessing data stored in memory) or transmitting (such as transmitting information), among other possibilities. Additionally, “determining” can include resolving, selecting, obtaining, choosing, establishing and other such similar actions.

[0193] As used herein, a phrase referring to “at least one of’ or “one or more of’ a list of items refers to any combination of those items, including single members. As an example, “at least one of: a, b, or c” is intended to cover: a, b, c, a-b, a-c, b-c, and a-b-c. As used herein, “or” is intended to be interpreted in the inclusive sense, unless otherwise explicitly indicated. For example, “a or b” may include a only, b only, or a combination of a and b. Furthermore, as used herein, a phrase referring to “a” or “an” element refers to one or more of such elements acting individually or collectively to perform the recited function(s). Additionally, a “set” refers to one or more items, and a “subset” refers to less than a whole set, but non-empty.

[0194] As used herein, “based on” is intended to be interpreted in the inclusive sense, unless otherwise explicitly indicated. For example, “based on” may be used interchangeably with “based at least in part on,” “associated with,” “in association with,” or “in accordance with” unless otherwise explicitly indicated. Specifically, unless a phrase refers to “based on only ‘a,’” or the equivalent in context, whatever it is that is “based on ‘a,’” or “based at least in part on ‘a,’” may be based on “a” alone or based on a combination of “a” and one or more other factors, conditions, or information.

[0195] The various illustrative components, logic, logical blocks, modules, circuits, operations, and algorithm processes described in connection with the examples disclosed herein may be implemented as electronic hardware, firmware, software, or combinations of hardware, firmware, or software, including the structures disclosed in this specification and the structural equivalents thereof The interchangeability of hardware, firmware and software has been described generally, in terms of functionality, and illustrated in the various illustrative components, blocks, modules, circuits and processes described above. Whether such functionality is implemented in hardware, firmware or software depends upon the particular application and design constraints imposed on the overall system.

[0196] Various modifications to the examples described in this disclosure may be readily apparent to persons having ordinary skill in the art, and the generic principles defined herein may be applied to other examples without departing from the spirit or scope of this disclosure. Thus, the claims are not intended to be limited to the examples shown herein, but are to be accorded the widest scope consistent with this disclosure, the principles and the novel features disclosed herein.

[0197] Additionally, various features that are described in this specification in the context of separate examples also can be implemented in combination in a single implementation. Conversely, various features that are described in the context of a single implementation also can be implemented in multiple examples separately or in any suitable subcombination. As such, although features may be described above as acting in particular combinations, and even initially claimed as such, one or more features from a claimed combination can in some cases be excised from the combination, and the claimed combination may be directed to a subcombination or variation of a subcombination.

[0198] Similarly, while operations are depicted in the drawings in a particular order, this should not be understood as requiring that such operations be performed in the particular order shown or in sequential order, or that all illustrated operations be performed, to achieve desirable results. Further, the drawings may schematically depict one or more example processes in the form of a flowchart or flow diagram. However, other operations that are not depicted can be incorporated in the example processes that are schematically illustrated. For example, one or more additional operations can be performed before, after, simultaneously, or between any of the illustrated operations. In some circumstances, multitasking and parallel processing may be advantageous. Moreover, the separation of various system components in the examples described above should not be understood as requiring such separation in all examples, and it should be understood that the described program components and systems can generally be integrated together in a single software product or packaged into multiple software products.

Claims

CLAIMS What is claimed is:

1. A sharing access point, comprising: a processing system that includes processor circuitry and memory circuitry that stores code, the processing system configured to cause the sharing access point to: perform a channel access procedure to obtain access to a wireless communication channel; and transmit coordinated spatial reuse configuration information indicating one or more rules to enable concurrent communication via the wireless communication channel during at least a portion of one or more reuse periods.

2. The sharing access point of claim 1, wherein the coordinated spatial reuse configuration information further indicates the one or more reuse periods that the sharing access point is sharing access to the wireless communication channel.

3. The sharing access point of claim 1, wherein the processing system is further configured to cause the sharing access point to: perform one or more frame exchanges with one or more stations associated with the sharing access point over the wireless communication channel during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with the coordinated spatial reuse configuration information.

4. The sharing access point of claim 1, wherein the processing system is further configured to cause the sharing access point to: perform one or more frame exchanges with one or more stations associated with the sharing access point during one or more dedicated periods, wherein the one or more reuse periods do not overlap with the one or more dedicated periods.

5. The sharing access point of claim 1, wherein the one or more rules comprises an indication of a signal strength threshold associated with eligibility for a wireless device and the sharing access point to concurrently transmit within the one or more reuse periods.

6. The sharing access point of claim 1 , wherein the processing system is further configured to cause the sharing access point to: perform one or more first frame exchanges with one or more first stations during the one or more reuse periods, wherein the one or more first stations satisfy a first classification metric; and perform one or more second frame exchanges with one or more second stations during one or more dedicated periods that are different than the one or more reuse periods, wherein the one or more second stations satisfy a second classification metric.

7. The sharing access point of claim 1, wherein the one or more rules indicate that one or more shared access points are to perform a contention procedure prior to accessing to the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods, and the processing system is further configured to cause the sharing access point to: perform one or more frame exchanges with one or more stations during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with the one or more rules.

8. The sharing access point of claim 7, wherein: the one or more rules indicate to transmit a request over the wireless communication channel and to receive a response in accordance with the request prior to attempting to access the wireless communication channel; and the one or more rules indicate that the one or more shared access points are to decode a request, a response, or both associated with one or more other access points to determine whether to attempt to access the wireless communication channel, the determination based at least in part on an address field of the request, an address field of the response, a received signal strength indicator of the request, a received signal strength indicator of the response, or any combination thereof.

9. The sharing access point of claim 7, wherein the one or more rules indicate that the one or more shared access points are to transmit a self-request message indicating that access has been obtained to the wireless communication channel prior to transmission of a message via the wireless communication channel.

10. The sharing access point of claim 1 , wherein the one or more rules indicate that one or more shared access points are to decode a physical layer convergence protocol header of one or more frames communicated via the wireless communication channel prior to attempting to access the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods, and the processing system is further configured to cause the sharing access point to: perform one or more first frame exchanges with one or more stations during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with the one or more rules.

11. The sharing access point of claim 1 , wherein the one or more rules enable the concurrent communication by providing each of the sharing access point and a shared access point with shared access to the wireless communication channel to perform one or more frame exchanges during a same duration.

12. A shared access point, comprising: a processing system that includes processor circuitry and memory circuitry that stores code, the processing system configured to cause the shared access point to: receive, from a sharing access point, coordinated spatial reuse configuration information indicating one or more rules to enable concurrent communication via a wireless communication channel during at least a portion of one or more reuse periods; perform a channel access procedure to access the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods in accordance with the one or more rules; and perform one or more frame exchanges with one or more stations associated with the shared access point over the wireless communication channel during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with successfully accessing the wireless communication channel via the channel access procedure.

13. The shared access point of claim 12, wherein the coordinated spatial reuse configuration information further indicates the one or more reuse periods that the sharing access point is sharing access to the wireless communication channel.

14. The shared access point of claim 12, wherein the one or more rules comprises an indication of a signal strength threshold associated with eligibility for a wireless device and the sharing access point to concurrently transmit within the one or more reuse periods, and the processing system is further configured to cause the shared access point to: measure a received signal strength associated with one or more signals transmitted by the sharing access point; and perform the channel access procedure to access the wireless communication channel in accordance with the received signal strength satisfying the signal strength threshold.

15. The shared access point of claim 12, wherein the processing system is further configured to cause the shared access point to: perform one or more first frame exchanges with one or more first stations during the one or more reuse periods, wherein the one or more first stations satisfy a first classification metric.

16. The shared access point of claim 12, wherein the one or more rules indicate to perform a contention procedure prior to accessing to the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods, and the processing system is further configured to cause the shared access point to: perform the channel access procedure that is the contention procedure prior to accessing to the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods; and perform the one or more frame exchanges during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods is in accordance with performing the contention procedure.

17. The shared access point of claim 16, wherein: the one or more rules indicate to transmit a request over the wireless communication channel and to receive a response from a station in accordance with the request prior to performing the one or more frame exchanges via the wireless communication channel; the one or more rules indicate to decode a request, a response, or both associated with one or more other access points to determine whether to attempt to access the wireless communication channel, the determination based at least in part on an address field of the request, an address field of the response, a received signal strength indicator of the request, a received signal strength indicator of the response, or any combination thereof; and to perform the contention procedure, the processing system is further configured to cause the shared access point to: transmit, to a first station of the one or more stations, the request over the wireless communication channel; and receive, prior to performing the one or more frame exchanges, the response from the first station in response to the request.

18. The shared access point of claim 16, wherein the one or more rules indicate to transmit a self-request message indicating that access has been obtained to the wireless communication channel prior to performing the one or more frame exchanges via the wireless communication channel, and wherein, to perform the channel access procedure, the processing system is configured to cause the shared access point to: transmit the self-request message indicating that the shared access point has obtained access to the wireless communication channel: and perform the one or more frame exchanges during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with the self-request message.

19. The shared access point of claim 12, wherein the one or more rules indicate to decode a physical layer convergence protocol header of one or more frames communicated via the wireless communication channel prior to attempting to access the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods, and wherein, to perform the channel access procedure, the processing system is configured to cause the shared access point to: decode one or more physical layer convergence protocol headers of one or more frames communicated via the wireless communication channel by one or more third access points prior to attempting to access the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods; and perform the one or more frame exchanges during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with decoding the one or more physical layer convergence protocol headers.

20. The shared access point of claim 12, wherein the processing system is further configured to cause the shared access point to: receive an indication of a netw ork allocation vector from the sharing access point, wherein the channel access procedure to access the wireless communication channel is performed in accordance with ignoring the indication of the network allocation vector.

21. The shared access point of claim 20, wherein the processing system is further configured to cause the shared access point to: receive a second indication of a second network allocation vector associated with one or more third access points; and determine whether to access the wireless communication channel in accordance with the second network allocation vector and which one or more other access points are detected using the wireless communication channel.

22. The shared access point of claim 12, wherein the one or more rules enable the concurrent communication by providing each of the sharing access point and the shared access point with shared access to the wireless communication channel to perform one or more frame exchanges during a same duration.

23. A method for wireless communications at a sharing access point, comprising: performing a channel access procedure to obtain access to a wireless communication channel; and transmiting coordinated spatial reuse configuration information indicating one or more rules to enable concurrent communication via the wireless communication channel during at least a portion of one or more reuse periods.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein the coordinated spatial reuse configuration information further indicates the one or more reuse periods that the sharing access point is sharing access to the wireless communication channel.

25. The method of claim 23, further comprising: performing one or more frame exchanges with one or more stations associated with the sharing access point over the wireless communication channel during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with the coordinated spatial reuse configuration information.

26. The method of claim 23, further comprising: performing one or more frame exchanges with one or more stations associated with the sharing access point during one or more dedicated periods, wherein the one or more reuse periods do not overlap with the one or more dedicated periods.

27. A method for wireless communications at a shared access point, comprising: receiving, from a sharing access point, coordinated spatial reuse configuration information indicating one or more rules to enable concurrent communication via a wireless communication channel during at least a portion of one or more reuse periods; performing a channel access procedure to access the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods in accordance with the one or more rules; and performing one or more frame exchanges with one or more stations associated with the shared access point over the wireless communication channel during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods in accordance with successfully accessing the wireless communication channel via the channel access procedure.

28. The method of claim 27, wherein the coordinated spatial reuse configuration information further indicates the one or more reuse periods that the sharing access point is sharing access to the wireless communication channel.

29. The method of claim 27, wherein the one or more rules comprises an indication of a signal strength threshold associated with eligibility for a wireless device and the sharing access point to concurrently transmit within the one or more reuse periods, the method further comprising: measuring a received signal strength associated with one or more signals transmitted by the sharing access point; and performing the channel access procedure to access the wireless communication channel in accordance with the received signal strength satisfying the signal strength threshold.

30. The method of claim 27, wherein the one or more rules indicate to perform a contention procedure prior to accessing to the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods, the method further comprising: performing the channel access procedure that is the contention procedure prior to accessing to the wireless communication channel during the one or more reuse periods; and performing the one or more frame exchanges during at least the portion of the one or more reuse periods is in accordance with performing the contention procedure.