Patent ID: 8711968

Claim:
A method of transmitting basic service set (BSS) load information in a wireless local area network, the method comprising: establishing, by an access point (AP), a BSS which is a set of member stations that have successfully synchronized with the AP and that have a capability of receiving at least one spatial stream of a plurality of spatial streams transmitted via a multi user multiple input multiple output (MU-MIMO) transmission; receiving, from a scanning station by the AP, a probe request frame including a service set ID (SSID) indicating the BSS; and transmitting, by the AP to the scanning station in response to the probe request frame, a probe response frame including load information including a station count field and an antenna utilization field, wherein the station count field indicates a number of the member stations that have successfully synchronized with the AP and that have the capability of receiving the at least one spatial stream of the plurality of spatial streams transmitted via the MU-MIMO transmission, and wherein the antenna utilization field indicates information about spatial streams that are under-utilized in the MU-MIMO transmission.