1) Slave desires access to the network, and so, it transmits a connection request. The master will receive this request, and will add the slave's address to a "poll-list". The request is not officially acknowledged until the it is the slave's turn to access the network. 

  

 2) When the slave is polled, it may then transmit frames to the master. The master stores the packets for later processing and/or routing. Note that these packets are ''not'' acknowledged until the next poll cycle. Each packet has a destination address (which may or may not be the master's address). Packets intended for reception by a destination are queued ''until it's that destination node's turn to use the network.'' At that time, the packets are finally forwarded to their destination. (Note: this repetition is necessary, since node A may not be in communications range with node B, even if both are in range of the master node.) 

  

  

 4) If a slave node wishes to disconnect, it does so by sending special packets to the master, where-upon it will remove the slave from the poll-list.