Patent ID: 8391135

Claim:
A method of operating an access point for wireless communication comprising: (1) wirelessly communicating in a first band comprising a first plurality of channels, including a first home channel and a first other channel, the first band having a first frequency about which the first plurality of channels are arranged; (2) sampling energy present in the first band, and in response, estimating a channel quality of the first home channel and a channel quality of the first other channel; (3) using the estimated channel quality of the first home channel to determine an expected bandwidth of the first home channel; (4) using the estimated channel quality of the first other channel to determine an expected bandwidth of the first other channel; (5) determining a minimum required bandwidth for one or more links established by the access point on the first home channel; and (6) determining that the minimum required bandwidth is greater than the expected bandwidth of the first home channel, but less than the expected bandwidth of the first other channel, and in response, switching the one or more links established on the first home channel to the first other channel; wherein step (2) comprises: periodically sampling energy of the first home channel, thereby creating a plurality of first home channel energy samples; comparing each of the plurality of first home channel energy samples to a threshold; and determining a first percentage of the first home channel energy samples that are less than the threshold.