Patent ID: 8451752

Claim:
A method performed by a mobile device in a wireless mesh network, the method comprising: communicating with a first mesh access point (AP) via a first radio frequency (RF) interface of the mobile device over a first wireless connection, the first mesh AP being one of a plurality of mesh APs of a first mesh cell of the wireless mesh network; wherein the first RF interface is associated with a first media control access (MAC) address, and the first wireless connection is established based on the first MAC address; detecting that signal quality of the first wireless connection drops below a predetermined threshold as the mobile device moves from the first mesh cell towards a second mesh cell; in response to the detection, establishing via a second RF interface of the mobile device a second wireless connection with a second mesh AP of a second mesh cell of the wireless mesh network, while concurrently maintaining the first wireless connection with the first mesh AP via the first RF interface, such that the mobile device maintains communications with the wireless mesh network via at least one of the first and second wireless connections while roaming from the first mesh cell to the second mesh cell, wherein the second RF interface is associated with a second MAC address that is different than the first MAC address, and the second wireless connection is established based on the second MAC address; upon successfully establishing the second wireless network, switching network traffic between the mobile device and the wireless mesh network from the first wireless connection to the second wireless connection, wherein packets exchanged over the first wireless connection and the second wireless connection are originated from an end-user device coupled to a network port of the mobile device, and wherein the mobile device operates in a wireless distribution system (WDS) mode in which packets associated with the end-user device are passed through the mobile device using layer-2 routing while preserving a MAC address of the end-user device; and terminating the first wireless connection once the network traffic has been switched over to the second wireless connection.