Patent ID: 7471668

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving a relaying packet at a first wireless node in a mesh network, said relaying packet having aggregated information; updating said aggregated information within said relaying packet; determining a next node to which said relaying packet is to be transmitted based on path information associated with said relaying packet; updating said path information associated with said relaying packet when a path associated with said relaying packet changes as a result of determining a next node; and transmitting said relaying packet to said next node; wherein determining a next node includes: determining whether neighbor nodes of said first wireless node have changed since a last time that said first wireless node received a relaying packet; determining whether a node that just transmitted said relaying packet to said first wireless node is different from a node that transmitted a relaying packet to said first wireless node in the past; and choosing the same next node that was used previously by said first wireless node, as indicated in said path information, when (a) said neighbor nodes of said first wireless node have not changed since the last time that said first wireless node received a relaying packet, and (b) said node that just transmitted said relaying packet to said first wireless node is the same as the node that transmitted a relaying packet to said first wireless node in the past.