CPC H04L 45/74 (2013.01) [H04L 1/16 (2013.01); H04L 1/1685 (2013.01); H04W 88/08 (2013.01)] | 21 Claims |
1. A network device to function as an Access Point (AP) in a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), the AP configured to acknowledge a data frame transmitted by a station (STA) in an uplink multi-user physical layer protocol data unit (UL MU PPDU), comprising:
one or more memories; and
a physical layer (PHY) processor and a media access controller (MAC) processor, each coupled to the one or more memories, configured to:
receive the UL MU PPDU;
decode an acknowledge (ACK) policy field within a data field of the UL MU PPDU; and
determine whether an acknowledgement (ACK) policy indicated in the data field signals an implicit block acknowledgement (BlockAck) request;
responsive to a determination that the ACK policy indication signals an implicit acknowledgement policy, the AP is configured to:
transmit an ACK or BlockAck frame to the STA in either a single user (SU) or a multi user (MU) manner; and wherein the implicit acknowledgement policy is signaled by a ‘0’ in bit 6 of a Quality of Service (QOS) control field and a ‘0’ in bit 5 of the QoS control field.
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