Patent ID: 7650428

Claim:
An efficient method for selecting a public land mobile network (PLMN) in a network system comprising at least one mobile packet based communications device and at least a wireless local access network providing access connectivity to at least one PLMN such as a WLAN network, comprising the steps of: provisioning a mobile packet based communications device with a list of a plurality of pubic land mobile networks, the public land mobile networks sequentially listed in order of preference associated with a mobile country code; operating a wireless local access network connected to a plurality of public land mobile networks, the wireless local access network accessible using a plurality of access points, each access point in a country efficiently advertising presence to the communication device using a service set identification and said service set identification when providing connectivity to PLMN's including the wireless local access network name and the mobile country code; and receiving from the communication device one or more try connection messages, each try connection message corresponding to a preferred public land mobile network, the communication device selectively and sequentially transmitting the try connection messages corresponding only to the preferred public land mobile networks associated with the same mobile country code as included in the service set identification.