Patent ID: 7506018

Claim:
A method for determining the number of users for an access point, comprising: determining inventory information for a location having a known number of users, where the access point is to be treated as an individual switch with a limited number of connections to a network, the number of required access points for the location is unknown, and the number of users per access point is unknown; establishing a number of users for an access point and a user type for said location to an initial value, wherein said initial value does not exceed the maximum number of users supportable by the access point; calculating traffic parameters for the access point based on the established number of users and the inventory information, the traffic parameters including: traffic from the access point to all other locations, traffic to the access point from all other locations; traffic from the access point to other access points at the location; traffic to the access point from other access points at the location; voice mail traffic and use; and community of interest factors for the location; determining a number of channels required for said access point based on said calculated traffic parameters; and changing said number of users for said access point and repeating the calculating and the determining of the number of channels required for said access point until such time as a highest number of users is established for said access point while said access point's channel capacity is not exceeded.