Channel, coding and power management for wireless local area networks
First Claim
1. A system for managing a wireless local area network, comprising:
- one or more access points having controllable settings;
one or more mobile units adapted to communicate with the one or more access points and report signal quality information; and
a controller for processing the reported signal quality information and determining one or more settings for one or more of the access points, wherein the one or more settings being communicated to the one or more access points.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A system and method are disclosed for the management of WLANs in cases where unmanaged access points are present as well as with the addition or removal of access points. The disclosed system and method use signal data and network traffic statistics collected by mobile units to determine optimal configuration settings for the access points. The access point settings so managed can include the operating channel or center frequency, orthogonal signal coding used (optionally including the data rate), if any, and the transmission power. The solutions computed can account for the inherent trade-offs between wireless network coverage area and mutual interference that may arises when two or more access points use the same or overlapping frequency bands or channels and the same or similar signal coding.
308 Citations
25 Claims
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1. A system for managing a wireless local area network, comprising:
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one or more access points having controllable settings;
one or more mobile units adapted to communicate with the one or more access points and report signal quality information; and
a controller for processing the reported signal quality information and determining one or more settings for one or more of the access points, wherein the one or more settings being communicated to the one or more access points. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. A method for managing a wireless local area network, the method comprising:
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receiving from a plurality of mobile units signal quality information, wherein the mobile units are adapted to communicate with the one or more access points in the wireless local area network to collect information relating to signal quality and to report this information to a controller for the wireless local area network;
processing the reported signal quality information and determining one or more settings for one or more of the access points; and
communicating the one or more settings to the one or more access points, wherein the one or more settings comprise one or more of a channel setting, a power setting, a coding setting, and a transmission data rate. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19)
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20. A mobile device adapted to communicate with the one or more access points and report signal quality information, comprising:
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a signal quality module to scan one or more channels for an access point identifier, a value of received signal strength indicator, statistics on packet transmission rates, packet retry rates, and signal to noise ratio; and
a module to transmit buffered signal quality information in response to a query by a controller in wireless local area network. - View Dependent Claims (21, 22)
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23. A system for managing a wireless local area network, comprising:
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means for modifying controllable settings of one or more access points;
means for communicating with the one or more access points and reporting signal quality information; and
means for processing the reported signal quality information and determining one or more controllable settings for one or more of the access points, wherein the one or more settings is being communicated to the one or more access points such that the controllable settings implement one or more of a preferred tradeoff between coverage and interference for the wireless local area network and whether one or more redundant access points should be enabled in response to the reported signal quality information. - View Dependent Claims (24, 25)
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Specification