Patent ID: 8451735

Claim:
A method for dynamic load balancing across a plurality of access devices at a site in a communication network, the method comprising the steps of: determining a respective load metric for each of a plurality of wireless access devices; distributing the respective load metric to each of the plurality of wireless access devices, wherein the respective load metric includes a credit number associated with each of the plurality of wireless access devices in the site; instructing one or more of the plurality of wireless access devices to disassociate a total number of mobile devices equal to the credit number of the respective load metric; compiling a candidate list of mobile devices at each of the one or more plurality of wireless access devices by calculating a candidate score for each of the plurality of mobile devices based upon: traffic load of each of the plurality of mobile devices, distance to a neighboring access device with credit to accept more mobile devices, and utilization of exempt applications that may be interrupted by disassociation of each of the plurality of mobile devices, and adding the assigned candidate score to the candidate list in an ordered structure; and disassociating one or more of the plurality of mobile devices responsive to the candidate score.