Patent ID: 7966036
Filing Date: 2011-06-21
Classification: H04W

Abstract:
1. A wireless LAN device for controlling access points, comprising: a radio wave coverage storage unit to store radio wave coverage information on whether the access points are within each other's coverage of radio waves; a terminal information storage unit to store terminal information about terminals associated with the individual access points; a packet receiver to receive, via any of the access points, a packet transmitted from any of the terminals in infrastructure mode; an access point acquisition unit to look up the terminal information storage-unit, based on terminal information about an originating terminal and a destination terminal contained in the packet, to identify an access point with which the originating terminal is associated and a different access point with which the destination terminal is associated; a radio wave coverage decision unit to look up the radio wave coverage storage unit, to determine whether the different access points with which the originating terminal and the destination terminal are respectively associated are within each other's coverage of radio waves; and a communication mode switch to switch mode of communication between the originating terminal and the destination terminal to ad-hoc mode in accordance with a result of the determination by the radio wave coverage decision unit.