Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Francis Duong

Abhishek Abhishek

Jiandong Ruan

Amer A Hassan

Thomas W Kuehnel

Christian F Huitema

Hui Shen

Yi Lu

Sean O Lyndersay

David T Jones

Vishesh Parikh

Srinivas Raghu Gatta

Arun Ayyagari

Deepak Bansal

Shai Guday

Anton W Krantz

Khawar Zuberi

Poovanpilli G Madhavan

Tarek Z Elabbady

Victoria Marie Poncini

David Jones

Yi Microsoft Corporation Lu

Yi c/o Microsoft Corporation International Patents Lu

Discovery of services between devices is provided prior to establishing a connection between devices, including wireless-enabled devices or devices that are communicatively coupled to wireless access points or other wireless communication devices. Discovering services prior to establishing a connection may facilitate finding a desired service. The services that may be discovered may be, for example, print services, camera services, PDA services or any other suitable services. Services may be discovered using 802.11, UWB or any other suitable wireless technology. As one example, particular services may be requested. As another example, services that are provided by a device may be advertised.

Proximity service discovery in wireless networks

A wireless station is connected to a wireless network through an access point and can establish a direct client-to-client connection to a second wireless station. The wireless station can communicate directly with the second wireless station without involving the access point. The wireless station communicates with the wired network and with other wireless stations through the access point. The second wireless station may have an infrastructure connection to the access point or may be independent.

Direct wireless client to client communication

Described is a determination of whether interference in a wireless network has achieved a threshold level that adversely impacts communication bandwidth. If so, action is taken to mitigate the effects of the interference and thereby improve the bandwidth. The action that is taken may be in the form of at least one mitigation solution, including mitigating by packet fragmentation, mitigating by changing the wireless network's current operating frequency, mitigating by changing a power level, mitigating by transmit dodging, and/or mitigating by pre-selecting at least one transmission criterion based on an observed pattern. A framework is provided to coordinate mitigation of interference-related problems, and includes an interferer decision mechanism that receives RF interference related-data and evaluates the interference data against a threshold. Mitigation is employed when the threshold is achieved on the current operating frequency.

Robust coexistence service for mitigating wireless network interference

Discovery of services between devices is provided prior to establishing a connection between devices, including wireless-enabled devices or devices that are communicatively coupled to wireless access points. Discovering services prior to establishing a connection may facilitate finding a desired service. The services that may be discovered may be, for example, print services, camera services, PDA services or any other suitable services. Services may be discovered using 802.11, UWB or any other suitable wireless technology. As one example, particular services may be requested. As another example, services that are provided by a device may be advertised.

An extensible wireless framework for connecting to a wireless network is provided. The extensible wireless framework includes a network roaming service with a registration component and a network service component. The registration component registers extensible service modules and extensible drivers for providing non-standard (i.e., extensible) capabilities to the wireless network. The extensible service module provides a service not provided by a native component of the extensible wireless framework, and the extensible driver may implement a media access control sub-layer of a wireless network protocol and provide a media access control interface. The network service component identifies available wireless networks, selects to join the wireless network when available, requests the extensible driver for the wireless network via its media access control interface to connect to the selected network, and notifies the extensible service module to provide services to the extensible driver.

Extensible wireless framework

A wireless device communications mode selector dynamically establishes an optimal communication mode between wireless devices and/or access point, such that stations communicate directly with each other or indirectly through an existing AP depending upon which mode would yield higher throughput under present network conditions and configuration. In an embodiment of the invention, a measurement based mechanism is used to decide which communication mode is more efficient. If it is decided that direct communication is optimal, the two stations can either form an adhoc network or an STA can be dynamically configured to become a wireless repeater access point (soft AP).

Measurement based mechanism to enable two wireless devices to directly communicate with each other to support traffic prioritization

The principles of the present invention provide for providing contention free quality of service to wireless stations. A station indicates to an access point that higher priority data (e.g., time constrained data) is to be sent to the access point. The access point receives the indication and selects a slot time for the station based on the number of other stations that have also indicated higher priority data. A slot time is selected such that the station can check for access to a common wireless link before any stations with lower priority data (e.g., data without time constraints). The access point sends the selected slot time to the station and the station receives the slot time. When the station receives an indication that an application has higher priority data to send, the station checks the common wireless link for availability at the selected slot time.

Providing contention free quality of service to time constrained data

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Bellevue, WA, United States of America

Francis Duong