Patent ID: 8332534

Claim:
An apparatus, comprising: a wireless station (STA) configured as a Group-of-Stations comprising a plurality of virtual stations on a computer platform, wherein said STA is capable of communicating with an access point (AP) in a managed wireless network, wherein said STA is capable of sending first management frames to said AP, wherein said first management frames are sent by said STA as being from said the plurality of virtual stations, and wherein said AP is configured to communicate with one of the plurality of virtual stations in said Group-of-Stations while sending second management frames to the plurality of virtual stations in said group Group-of-Stations, wherein said Group-of-Stations is configured by using masking operations on a MAC address, wherein said using masking operations on a MAC address comprises N bits of a station MAC address to identify the Group-of-Station's address, and to differentiate between Group-of-Station's addresses and regular MAC addresses, M bits of Group-of-Station's addresses that are set to a specific mask; and X bits of a MAC address that are in a specific place of a station MAC address to uniquely identify a particular station inside a Group-of-Stations.