Patent ID: 8588844

Claim:
A method for communication, comprising: arranging multiple access points in a wireless local area network (WLAN) to communicate over the air with a station in a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) configuration, wherein the access points are configured to communicate with the station over a common frequency channel and using a common basic service set identification (BSSID) for all the access points, and to communicate with an access manager over a communication medium linking the access points to the access manager; measuring transmission quality, in alternation, between two or more of the access points and the station in a plurality of different MIMO states, each MIMO state characterized at least by a respective number of spatial streams to be transmitted in the state; and responsively to the measured transmission quality, selecting one of the access points and one of the MIMO states to transmit data to the station by sending first messages over the communication medium from the access points to the access manager in order to report the measured transmission quality and sending second messages from the access manager to the access points to indicate the selected one of the access points and the selected one of the MIMO states.