Patent ID: 8855018

Claim:
A method of associating a station with a wireless terminal point and an access controller, comprising: listening passively, by the station, to a beacon frame of the wireless terminal point and acquiring, by the station, parameters of the wireless terminal point comprising WAPI information elements; or transmitting, by the station, on its own initiative a probe request frame to the wireless terminal point, transmitting, by the wireless terminal point, a probe response frame to the station upon reception of the probe request frame of the station, and acquiring, by the station, the parameters of the wireless terminal point including the WAPI information elements upon reception of the probe response frame of the wireless terminal point; wherein the WAPI information elements include suites of authentication and key management and suites of ciphers supported by the wireless terminal point; transmitting, by the station, a link authentication request frame to the access controller for authenticating a link to the access controller; transmitting, by the access controller, a link authentication response frame to the station in response to the link authentication request frame of the station; transmitting, by the station, an association request frame to the access controller for association with the access controller upon successful link authentication by comprising in the association request a WAPI information element comprising a suite of authentication and key management and a suite of ciphers selected by the station from said WAPI information elements; and parsing, by the access controller, the association request frame of the station to extract the WAPI information element comprising the suite of authentication and key management and the suite of ciphers selected by the station, and transmitting, by the access controller, an association response frame to the station.