Patent ID: 8917708

Claim:
A method for establishing device to device (D2D) communication in a hybrid wireless network, comprising: identifying a proximity of a first user equipment (UE) with a second UE using a wireless wide area network (WWAN); communicating network assisted proximity discovery information to the first UE and the second UE, wherein the proximity discovery information includes a D2D communication channel, wherein the network assisted proximity discovery information enables the proximity between the first U E and the second UE to be detected; selecting one of the first UE and the second UE to be a peer to peer (P2P) group owner, wherein one of the first UE and the second UE that is selected to be the P2P group owner is configured to transmit a P2P group identification (ID) and one of the first UE and the second UE that is not selected to be the P2P group owner is configured to scan for the P2P group ID; and establishing a D2D communication link between the first UE and the second UE using a wireless local area network (WLAN) based D2D format on the D2D communication channel.