The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Nov. 03, 2009
Filed:
Oct. 21, 2002
Marco Molteni, Antibes, FR;
Massimo G Lucchina, Villeneuve Loubet, FR;
Marco Molteni, Antibes, FR;
Massimo G Lucchina, Villeneuve Loubet, FR;
Cisco Technology, Inc., San Jose, CA (US);
Abstract
In a wireless station, a method includes, prior to the station being associated with a wireless network, wirelessly receiving L2 frames transmitted from one or more wireless access points (APs) of one or more wireless networks that the station can hear, and gathering information about the received L2 data units, including L2 information and L3 information. The method further includes maintaining the gathered information as a wireless network database that includes for each wireless network, a unique identifier of the wireless network; an indication of the quality of communication between the station and the AP of the wireless network; and one or more L3 advertisements from one or more IP-enabled service providers that the AP of the wireless network transmits. The indication of the quality of communication between the AP of the wireless network includes one or more network performance metrics obtained by temporarily associating with the AP, sending one or more probe packets to the AP, and collecting the one or more network performance metrics.