the invention provides a method and apparatus by which the usage of an existing ring network is extended by implementing spatial reuse of the network bandwidth . by spatial reuse we mean that specific portions of the ring network may reuse the same bandwidth . essentially , the invention is based on the realization that each station rarely needs to communicate with all the other stations that share its ring . under normal conditions , a station requires the ability to send messages only to a subgroup of the total number of stations . if the ring network is thought of as a circle and if the communicating stations are contiguous , then these stations occupy only an arc on the circle . outside this arc , the bandwidth assigned to these stations is not in use . accordingly , the bandwidth can be reassigned to stations which form other , non - overlapping arcs .