Patent ID: 8194541

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving, at a receiving node, a reply message to a flooding message from a neighboring wireless node, the reply message including information on a desired next-hop recipient node of the reply message; determining whether the receiving node is the desired next-hop recipient node; if the receiving node is not the desired next-hop recipient node, determining whether the desired next-hop recipient node is a one-hop neighbor of the receiving node based, at least in part, on a neighbor table of the receiving node; determining a relative radio distance of the neighboring wireless node that transmitted the reply message and a relative radio distance of the desired next-hop recipient node; categorizing the relative radio distances as very near, near or far based on increasing distance thresholds associated with the categories; and determining to initiate a collaborative reply process if the receiving node is not the desired next-hop recipient node and the desired next-hop recipient node is the one-hop neighbor of the receiving node based, at least in part, on the categorization.