Patent ID: 7697549

Claim:
Apparatus for mobile communication, comprising: a switch, having a plurality of ports for connection to a wired local area network (LAN); a plurality of access points, which are arranged in a wireless local area network (WLAN) to communicate over the air in accordance with a predefined WLAN protocol on a common frequency channel with a mobile station using a common basic service set identification (BSSID) for all the access points, and which are coupled by the LAN to the switch so that upon receiving at one or more of the access points an uplink packet transmitted over the WLAN by the mobile station on the common frequency channel, the one or more of the access points convey messages responsively to the uplink packet over the LAN to the switch; and a manager node, which is coupled to the switch so as to receive the messages and is adapted to process the messages so as to select one of the access points to respond to the uplink packet, and to send an instruction via the switch to the selected one of the access points to transmit to the mobile station a response to the uplink packet within a time limit specified by the WLAN protocol.