Patent ID: 7315533

Claim:
A method of assigning frequency channels and transmit powers for a plurality of access points of a wireless network, the method comprising: accepting a measure of connectivity between the access points of the network, wherein the measure of connectivity between the access points of the network is a set of pairwise path losses from each access point to a different access point of the network; and repeating until there are no more access points to which to assign a transmit power and frequency channel: (a) selecting a current access point to which to assign a transmit power and frequency channel; (b) determining for a set of at least one transmit power for a set of at least one frequency channel a measure of the quality of the sub-network formed by the current access point and all access points to which a transmit power and frequency channel have been assigned, the measure according to an evaluation metric indicative of the quality of the sub-network; and (c) assigning to the current access point the transmit power and frequency channel that minimizes the measure of the quality of the sub-network wherein assigning frequency channels and transmit powers for an access point includes assigning one or more frequency channels and one or more transmit powers for the access point to communicate with its one or more clients.