Patent ID: 7424007

Claim:
A power-save method for a network having at least one access point and at least one associated power-save client comprising the steps of: buffering, at the access point, wireless data including at least one of a unicast frame and a multicast frame; transmitting a periodic scheduled beacon message over at least one wireless link, the beacon message including a unicast indication element and a multicast indication element; designating at least one beacon message as a multicast delivery beacon; transmitting the buffered multicast frame following the designated at least one multicast delivery beacon; determining multicast group membership for each associated client station; examining at least one Internet Group Management Protocol Membership Report; determining, from the at least one Internet Group Management Protocol Membership Report a multicast group membership for the associated client; and classifying each multicast group: wherein a multicast group is disabled when no associated clients are members, wherein a multicast group is active when all member stations are in active mode, and wherein a multicast group is power-save when at least one associated member station is in power-save mode.