Patent ID: 7515548

Claim:
A method for determining network status in a wireless local area network, comprising: calculating the percentage of packets lost in signal transmissions between a wireless station and an access point in a wireless local area network; determining a reason for said lost packets by comparing at least one receive signal strength indicator (RSSI) at said wireless station with a threshold; comparing a noise level in said network with a noise level threshold; gathering network status information from a plurality of other wireless stations including at least one RSSI and noise level; applying a plurality of predetermined weightings to the network status information received from the plurality of other wireless stations respectively so that the reason for said lost packets and the at least one of the RSSI and noise level obtained at the wireless station is weighted more than the reason for said lost packets and the at least one of the RSSI and noise level received from the plurality of other wireless stations; and combining network status information analyzed from one or more of the plurality of other wireless stations in said network with said reason for lost packets from said wireless station to determine a current network status.