Seamless roaming for wireless local area networks
US5987062A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Dec 15, 1995 |
| Grant date | Nov 16, 1999 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Dec 15, 2015 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04W84/12
- WIPO fieldTelecommunications
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A wireless local area network allows roaming of a mobile unit to allow it to serially associate with a number of access points of the network fixed backbone. This roaming is supported by an improved measurement of communications link quality, which includes calculating a mean error free length of a test pattern broadcast by each access point and received by a mobile unit. The test pattern is a digital data message. Thus an accurate measurement of link quality is provided which allows a mobile unit to determine whether it should change its association to another access point having improved communications link quality. Further, a load balancing process is provided to balance the communications load amongst a variety of access points, by allowing mobile units also to switch their association with access points in accordance with a current total data rate at any given access point and also considering the number of currently high data rate mobile units associated with a particular access point at any one time.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.