Patent ID: 7672274
Filing Date: 2010-03-02
Classification: H04L,H04W

Abstract:
1. A routing method for enhancing mobility of a mobile station, comprising: communicating packets with the mobile station using a first port on a switch and a first repeater coupled to the first port, wherein a media access control (“MAC”) layer functionality is split between a switch MAC sublayer associated with the switch and a corresponding first repeater MAC sublayer associated with the first repeater; changing to use a second port on the switch to communicate with the mobile station, the second port being different than the first port and coupled to a second repeater different than the first repeater and having a corresponding second repeater MAC sublayer, wherein the changing step is accomplished by the switch using the switch MAC sublayer and occurs when the switch determines that the mobile station is closer to the second repeater based on a comparison of received signal strength from duplicate packets received on the first and second repeaters; and communicating packets with the mobile station using the second port and the second repeater, whereby mobility provisions of IEEE 802.11 protocol are ignored during the changing step.