Making roaming decisions based on association qualities between wireless devices and wireless access points
First Claim
1. In a wireless local area network environment that includes a plurality of wireless access points and a wireless device that is currently associated with a current wireless access point from among the plurality of wireless access points, a method for determining whether the wireless device should roam to associate with another of the wireless access points, the method comprising the following performed by the wireless device:
- an act of calculating an association quality for the current wireless access point based on a plurality of parameters relevant to the quality of the current association;
an act of determining that the association quality for the current wireless access point is insufficient;
an act of calculating an association quality for at least one of the other wireless access points of the plurality of wireless access points;
an act of comparing the association quality of the current wireless access point to the association quality of the at least one of the other wireless access points; and
an act of determining that the wireless device should attempt to associate with one of the at least one of the other wireless access points.
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Accused Products
Abstract
The principles of the present invention provides for making roaming decisions based on association qualities between a wireless device and one or more wireless access points. From time to time, the wireless device updates a current association quality for a current wireless access point, for example, based on relative signal strength, observed error rates, and current wireless access point workload. Similarly, the wireless device updates association qualities for any other wireless access points the wireless device can communicate with. If the current association quality falls below a quality threshold, the wireless device roams to attempt to associate with another wireless access point. The wireless device ranks compatibly configured wireless access points based at least in part on corresponding association qualities. The wireless device can attempt to associate with higher ranked wireless access points before lower ranked wireless access points.
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Citations
44 Claims
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1. In a wireless local area network environment that includes a plurality of wireless access points and a wireless device that is currently associated with a current wireless access point from among the plurality of wireless access points, a method for determining whether the wireless device should roam to associate with another of the wireless access points, the method comprising the following performed by the wireless device:
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an act of calculating an association quality for the current wireless access point based on a plurality of parameters relevant to the quality of the current association;
an act of determining that the association quality for the current wireless access point is insufficient;
an act of calculating an association quality for at least one of the other wireless access points of the plurality of wireless access points;
an act of comparing the association quality of the current wireless access point to the association quality of the at least one of the other wireless access points; and
an act of determining that the wireless device should attempt to associate with one of the at least one of the other wireless access points. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
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18. In a wireless local area network environment that includes a plurality of wireless access points and a wireless device that is currently associated with a current wireless access point from among the plurality of wireless access points, a method for determining whether the wireless device should roam to associate with another of the wireless access points, the method comprising the following performed by the wireless device:
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an act of calculating an association quality for the current wireless access point based on a plurality of parameters relevant to the quality of the current association;
an act of determining that the association quality for the current wireless access point is insufficient;
a step for identifying that at least one of the other wireless access points has a sufficient association quality;
an act of determining that the wireless device should attempt to associate with one of the at least one other wireless access points.
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19. In a wireless local area network environment that includes a plurality of wireless access points and a wireless device that is associated with a current access point from among the plurality of wireless access points, a method for identifying a new access point for the wireless device to attempt to associate with when the association quality for the current access point is insufficient, the method comprising the following performed by the wireless device:
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an act of creating a candidate list of one or more wireless access points from among the plurality of wireless access points, the candidate list including wireless access points that have a configuration appropriate for communicating with the wireless device;
an act of generating a ranked candidate list by assigning a corresponding rank to each wireless access point in the candidate list, the corresponding rank for each wireless access point being calculated at least in part based on an association quality between the access point and the wireless device;
an act of selecting a ranked wireless access point from the ranked candidate list; and
an act of attempting to associate with the selected ranked wireless access point. - View Dependent Claims (20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30)
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31. In a wireless local area network environment that includes a plurality of wireless access points and a wireless device that is associated with a current access point from among the plurality of wireless assess points, a method for indicating resource availability to the wireless device, the method comprising the following performed by a providing wireless access point from among the plurality of wireless access points:
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an act of determining resource availability for a plurality of different resources that could be utilized during wireless communication with the wireless device;
an act of calculating an access point availability parameter that collectively represents the availability of the providing wireless access point'"'"'s different resources; and
an act of sending a packet that includes the access point availability parameter to the wireless device, the packet also being indicative of the corresponding signal strength of the providing wireless access point. - View Dependent Claims (32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37)
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38. A computer program product for use in a wireless local area network environment that includes a plurality of wireless access points and a wireless device that is currently associated with a current wireless access point from among the plurality of wireless access points, the computer program produce for implementing a method for determining whether the wireless device should roam to associate with another of the wireless access points, the computer program product comprising one or more computer-readable media having stored thereon computer executable instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the wireless device to perform the following:
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calculate an association quality for the current wireless access point based on a plurality of parameters relevant to the quality of the current association;
determine that the association quality for the current wireless access point is insufficient;
calculate an association quality for at least one of the other wireless access points of the plurality of wireless access points;
compare the association quality of the current wireless access point to the association quality of the at least one of the other wireless access points; and
determine that the wireless device should attempt to associate with one of the at least one of the other wireless access points based on the comparison. - View Dependent Claims (39)
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40. A computer program product for use in a wireless local area network environment that includes a plurality of wireless access points and a wireless device that is associated with a current access point from among the plurality of wireless access points, the computer program product for implementing a method for identifying a new access point for the wireless device to attempt to associate with when the association quality for the current access point is insufficient, the computer program product comprising one or more computer-readable media having stored thereon computer executable instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the wireless device to perform the following:
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create a candidate list of one or more wireless access points from among the plurality of wireless access points, the candidate list including wireless access points that have a configuration appropriate for communicating with the wireless device;
generate a ranked candidate list by assigning a corresponding rank to each wireless access point in the candidate list, the corresponding rank for each wireless access point being calculated at least in part based on an association quality between the wireless access point and the wireless device;
select a ranked wireless access point from the ranked candidate list; and
attempt to associate with the selected ranked wireless access point. - View Dependent Claims (41)
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42. A computer program product for use in a wireless local area network environment that includes a plurality of wireless access points and a wireless device that is associated with a current access point from among the plurality of wireless assess points, the computer program produce for implementing a method for indicating resource availability to the wireless device, the computer program product comprising one or more computer-readable media having stored thereon computer executable instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause a providing access point from among the plurality of wireless access points to perform the following:
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determine resource availability for a plurality of different resources that could be utilized during wireless communication with the wireless device;
calculate an access point availability parameter that collectively represents the availability of the providing wireless access point'"'"'s different resources; and
send a packet that includes the access point availability parameter to the wireless device, the data packet also being indicative of the corresponding signal strength of the providing wireless access point. - View Dependent Claims (43)
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44. In a wireless device, one or more computer-readable media having stored thereon a data structure for representing an entry in an access point list, the data structure comprising the following:
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an access point identifier field representing an access point identifier for identifying a wireless access point that can wirelessly communicate with the wireless device;
a quality parameter field representing an association quality value that indicates the association quality between the wireless device and the wireless access point identified in the access point identifier field; and
an AP configuration parameters field representing one or more configuration values that indicate the configuration of the wireless access point identified in the access point identifier field.
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Specification