Patent ID: 8619609

Claim:
A wireless network comprising: a control node; and a plurality of communication nodes in wireless communication with the control node, each of the communication nodes having a wireless communication path to the control node that is either a direct path or an indirect path through one or more communication nodes that serve as repeaters, wherein some of the communication nodes are designated as having a priority over other communication nodes with respect to their service as the repeaters, and wherein, for communication nodes that are more than one hop from the control node, the control node establishes wireless communication paths first with said priority communication nodes and subsequently with remaining communication nodes, wherein the wireless network is configurable to operate in a priority repeater mode in which each communication node that is more than one hop from the control node has a wireless communication path to the control node through a closest priority communication node that is a fewer or equal number of hops from the communication node than any other priority communication node.