Patent ID: 8599814

Claim:
A network-enabled hub, usable for facilitating data communications between two or more wireless devices that are configured to communicate indirectly with each other via the network-enabled hub, comprising: an interface to a wireless radio circuit that can send and receive data wirelessly, providing the hub with bi-directional wireless data communication capability; logic for processing data received via the wireless radio circuit; logic for generating data to be transmitted by the wireless radio circuit; logic for initiating and maintaining wireless network connections with nodes of a wireless network external to the network-enabled hub, maintaining at least a first wireless network connection using a first wireless network protocol and a second wireless network connection using a second wireless network protocol, that can be maintained, at times, simultaneously with each other in a common wireless space, wherein the second wireless network protocol is an overlay protocol with respect to the first wireless network protocol in that communications using the second wireless network protocol are partially consistent with the first wireless network protocol and at least some of the communications using the second wireless network protocol impinge on at least some antennae used for the first wireless network; and data forwarding logic, implemented in the network-enabled hub using hardware and/or software, that forwards data between an originating node and a destination node, wherein the originating node is a node in one of the first and second wireless networks and the destination node is a node in the other of the first and second wireless networks.