Patent ID: 7769888

Claim:
A wireless local area utility network system, comprising: a plurality of utility nodes that are part of a wireless local area utility network, each of the utility nodes being configured to transmit information on a metered commodity; at least one access point in communication with at least one of the utility nodes in the wireless local area utility network, the at least one access point being in communication with a wide area network and constituting an interface between the wide area network and the wireless local area utility network; and at least one back office system in communication with the wide area network, and configured to communicate with at least one of the plurality of utility nodes via at least one access point, wherein at least one of the utility nodes is configured to: discover next hop utility nodes in the wireless local area utility network; discover at least one access point constituting an interface between the wide area network and the wireless local area utility network; register with the discovered at least one access point; select a plurality of utility nodes among the discovered next hop utility nodes as next hop utility nodes for communicating with the discovered at least one access point; receive routing information from at least one of the discovered next hop utility nodes; construct a routing table from the routing information received from the discovered next hop utility nodes, wherein the routing table includes a first path and at least one alternate path to a given destination node in the wireless local area utility network; broadcast at least one discovery frame to the utility nodes in the wireless utility network; and receive network egress advertisement messages in response to the broadcasting of the at least one discovery frame to the utility nodes in the wireless utility network, the network egress advertisement messages including information on at least one egress utility node of the wireless utility network.