Method and apparatus for automatic configuration of wireless networks
First Claim
1. A method for dynamically configuring a wireless network comprising the steps of testing a first wireless node against a predetermined criteria, establishing the first node as an access point if the predetermined criteria is satisfied and establishing a link with a second node, and establishing the first node as a station node if the predetermined criteria is not met and an association can be made with an access point.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A wireless network software access point (AP) integrated into a wireless device allows a wireless network to be configured automatically and dynamically maintained with minimal user intervention. Such automatic configuration includes: whether to configure the Soft AP enabled device to be an AP Node or a Station Node; specifics of wireless radio link configuration, routing or bridging relationships with other networking devices attached to the host-computing device; and firewall configuration. Such automatic configurations are based on the automatic detection of the network environment attached to the Soft AP enabled device. The automatic configurations may also be based on the intelligent interactions among different Soft AP enabled devices in the wireless network, which often includes devices with and without Soft AP functionalities.
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Citations
14 Claims
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1. A method for dynamically configuring a wireless network comprising the steps of
testing a first wireless node against a predetermined criteria, establishing the first node as an access point if the predetermined criteria is satisfied and establishing a link with a second node, and establishing the first node as a station node if the predetermined criteria is not met and an association can be made with an access point.
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4. A method of dynamically configuring a wireless network including the steps of
establishing the network among a plurality of nodes by establishing at least one of the nodes as an access point and at least one other node as a station node, optimizing the network by minimizing the number of access points while maintaining a wireless connection to each node within the network, and extending the network by connecting to newly added nodes, including reconfiguring an existing station node as an access point if required to establish communication with the newly added node.
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12. A dynamically reconfigurable network comprising
a plurality of nodes, at least some of the nodes being capable of being configured as either an access point or a station node, a computer program resident within at least some of the nodes for testing whether to establish a given node as an access point or a station node, and a timer for causing at least one node to rerun the computer program.
Specification