Pre-Association Discovery

• US 20140362735A1
• Filed: 08/22/2014
• Published: 12/11/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 10/20/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Marvell Asia Pte Limited (Marvell Technology Group Limited)
• Original Assignee: Marvell World Trade Limited (Marvell Technology Group Limited)
• Inventors: Mahaffy, Brian, Stokes, DeVerl, Asbury, Raymond C.
• Granted Patent: US 9,332,488 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/254
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/02 Arrangements for optimising operational condition
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/12 using downlink control channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/16 Discovering, processing access restriction or access information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/18 Selecting a network or a communication service
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/005 Discovery of network devices, e.g. terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/12 WLAN [Wireless Local Area Networks]

Abstract

The present disclosure describes techniques for pre-association discovery. In some aspects a frame having information useful to identify a service provided by a wireless device is received, the service provided by the wireless device is identified based on the information of the frame and known service identification information, and the identified service is associated with the wireless device effective to enable use of the identified service.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, via a wireless interface, a frame from a wireless device, the frame including information useful to identify a name of a wireless network with which the wireless device is associated and a service provided by the wireless device, the information useful to identify the name of the wireless network and the service provided by the wireless device being included in a service set identifier (SSID) field of the frame, the service provided by the wireless device being a service other than access to the wireless network;

identifying the service provided by the wireless device based on the information in the SSID field of the frame and known service identification information; and

associating the identified service with the wireless device effective to enable use of the identified service via the wireless interface.