| CPC H04W 74/0808 (2013.01) [H04W 72/0453 (2013.01); H04W 84/12 (2013.01)] | 8 Claims |

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1. A wireless communication device that detects a vacant channel by carrier sensing from among a plurality of channels and performs communication using the vacant channel, the wireless communication device comprising
a carrier sensing circuitry configured to divide channels to be carrier sensed between the wireless communication device and a surrounding wireless station, such that a portion of said plurality of channels is carrier sensed by said wireless communication device and the rest of said plurality of channels is carrier sensed by said surrounding wireless station, before starting data transmission, transmit a trigger signal specifying a subset of the plurality of channels to be carrier sensed to the surrounding wireless station, acquire a result of carrier sensing performed by the surrounding wireless station in response to the trigger signal, and detects the vacant channel based on the results of carrier sensing by the wireless communication device station and the surrounding wireless station, where the result of carrier sensing from the surrounding wireless station indicates a channel status for each channel in the subset of channels and the subset of channels includes two or more channels.
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