Patent ID: 8254347

Claim:
A method for associating a mobile device to an adjacent access point (AP) in a wireless, local area network (WLAN) comprising the steps of: configuring a first set of adjacent APs by assigning AP identifiers to the APs within the first set, wherein each AP in the first set has a signal quality indicator that exceeds a threshold that indicates the APs in the first set are adjacent, and wherein each AP identifier of the assigned AP identifiers identifies only a single one of the APs within the first set and is unique within the first set; selecting, within a controller in the WLAN, at least one AP identifier from the assigned AP identifiers that achieves load balancing goals of the WLAN; forwarding the at least one selected AP identifier from the controller to at least one mobile device to associate the at least one mobile device to an AP that is identified by the at least one selected AP identifier as achieving load balancing goals of the WLAN; and assigning additional AP identifiers to additional APs within at least one additional set of adjacent APs within the WLAN, wherein the additional AP identifiers include at least one of the AP identifiers assigned to the first set of adjacent APs.