Abstract: This invention proposes unique methods and apparatus for networking low cost low energy sensor nodes. The invention focuses on efficient Media Access Control (MAC) schemes to provide differentiated Quality of Service (QoS) to the sensor nodes in single-hop wireless and wired networks where the source nodes do not have a receiver module. Hence they can only transmit data to a sink but cannot receive any control signals, like an ACK or NAK, from any other node. None of the existing schemes like polling or scheduled transmissions, CSMA or ARQ is thus effective in this type of networks. The proposed scheme provides QoS to the nodes using distributed control by allowing them to transmit each packet an optimal number of times within a given interval.