Patent ID: 8411608

Claim:
A computer-readable memory, having computer executable instructions stored therein for minimizing access point airtime consumed by multicast traffic in an 802.11-based Wi-Fi network, said instructions comprising causing a server computer to: evaluate multicast subscription requests of a plurality of clients in wireless communication with one or more access points in the Wi-Fi network; subscribe once to each unique multicast corresponding to each unique multicast subscription request on behalf of one or more multicast groups comprising one or more of the clients; evaluate each client to perform an iterative “association control” process to assign each client to one of the access points, and sending the corresponding assignments to each client so that each client can associate with its assigned access point; for each multicast group, performing a “destination control” process for identifying a single client having a lowest transmission rate with its assigned access point, and designating each such client as a “target client”; converting all subscribed multicasts to unicasts; and providing the unicasts to each access point having any clients subscribed to the corresponding multicast, and directing the access points to transmit the unicasts only to corresponding target clients; wherein each client includes computer executable instructions for causing each client to: receive each unicast transmissions corresponding to any multicast to which each client is subscribed; decode the received unicasts using a shared security session key of the corresponding target client; and convert the decoded unicasts to multicasts for local playback on each client.