Patent ID: 8036186

Claim:
A method of adaptively setting a transmission power level of a node within a wireless mesh network, the wireless mesh network comprising a gateway and a plurality of wireless access nodes, comprising: monitoring a quality of a plurality of reverse direction links between the node and a plurality of downstream nodes, and between the node and an upstream node, of the wireless mesh network, wherein the reverse direction links are directed away from the node, wherein the quality of the plurality of reverse direction links is determined at each of the plurality of downstream nodes and the upstream node, and transmitted back to node, wherein the upstream node comprises the gateway or an upstream access node located in a routing path between the node and the gateway, and the node is located in a routing path between the downstream nodes and the gateway; identifying a worst quality reverse direction link based on the monitoring of the quality of the plurality of reverse direction links; if the worst quality link is greater than a high threshold, then decreasing the transmission power level of the node; if the worst quality link is less than a low threshold, then increasing the transmission power level of the node.