Patent ID: 7245877

Claim:
A method, comprising: from two or more regulatory regions in which a mobile unit may operate, selecting one of the two or more regulatory regions in which to perform a passive scan for a wireless local area network; performing a passive scan on one or more channels; if network activity is detected on a current channel of said one or more channels, eliminating regulatory regions that do not operate on a current frequency and determining whether the network activity is on a preferred network; if the network activity is on a preferred network, exiting said performing and connecting to the network; if the network activity is not on a preferred network, indicating the channel as a valid channel of a present region; in said performing, sending a probe request with a preferred network identifier on the current channel using a safe transmitting power level; and if a reply to the probe request is received, exiting said performing and connecting to the network; and if no reply to the probe request is received, eliminating the current channel.