The aforementioned operations in the communication technique may be repeated so that radio node 110-1 can dynamically adapt to changes in communication environment 108. For example, the communication technique may be performed once (such as when radio node 110-1 is turned on), periodically (such as, e.g., every 50 ms), as needed (such as when there are delays in receiving a given instance of the keep-alive response) and/or continuously.

In this way, the communication technique may selectively and dynamically ensure that there is sufficient time for radio node 110-1 to receive a subsequent instance of the keep-alive response. This may ensure that radio node 110-1 remains authorized to transmit in the granted portion of the spectrum. Consequently, the communication technique may reduce or eliminate delays and may improve communication performance.

In general, the wireless communication in FIG. 1 may be characterized by a variety of performance metrics, such as: a data rate for successful communication (which is sometimes referred to as ‘throughput’), an error rate (such as a retry or resend rate), a mean-square error of equalized signals relative to an equalization target, intersymbol interference, multipath interference, a signal-to-noise ratio, a width of an eye pattern, a ratio of number of bytes successfully communicated during a time interval (such as 1-10 s) to an estimated maximum number of bytes that can be communicated in the time interval (the latter of which is sometimes referred to as the ‘capacity’ of a communication channel or link), and/or a ratio of an actual data rate to an estimated data rate (which is sometimes referred to as ‘utilization’).