Patent ID: 9538463
Date: 2017-01-03
CPC Classifications: H04W

Claim:
1. A wireless communications device, comprising: a memory, wherein the memory, in a state in which the wireless communications device is connected to one of a plurality of Access Points (APs), the plurality of APs comprising said one AP to which the wireless communications device is connected and other APs to which the wireless communications device was previously connected, stores signal strengths and throughputs of the APs which the wireless communications device was previously or is currently connected to; and a processor, updating the stored signal strength and throughput of the currently connected AP, and scanning for available APs nearby in response to detecting a low-throughput condition by determining that a number of retried transmission attempts for transmitting data with the currently connected AP has exceeded a predetermined level; (a) wherein the processor further switches the wireless communications device from the currently connected AP to one of the scanned APs which is estimated, using the stored signal strengths and throughputs, to have the highest throughput among the scanned APs; (b) wherein the processor further determines a respective number of APs using a same communication channel for each of the scanned APs according to the scanning result, and switches the wireless communications device from the currently connected AP to said one of the scanned AP in response to determining that the number of APs using the same communication channel as said one of the scanned AP is less than a predetermined threshold; (c) wherein if the number of APs using the same communication channel as said one of the scanned APs is greater than or equal to the predetermined threshold, the processor selects another scanned AP which is estimated to have the next highest throughput, and switches to said another scanned AP in response to determining that the number of APs using the same communication channel as said another scanned AP is less than the predetermined threshold; (d) wherein the processor repeats (c) until one of the scanned APs for switching is selected for switching which has a number of APs using the same communication channel therewith that is less than the predetermined threshold.