Patent ID: 7672254

Claim:
An apparatus for providing a frame bridge in a wireless local area network (WLAN), which provides a wired network service received from a communication network through a gateway to a station, comprising: an access point (AP) initializer establishing connections with near access points through a first radio channel when a current access point transmits and receives a probe frame including identity numbers of each access point to/from near access points, and is selected as a master access point; a station (STA) initializer for broadcasting a beacon frame, including time information, to the station through a second radio channel and establishing a connection to the station after a frame communication with the near access point is suspended for a predetermined time; a frame bridge provider for providing the wired network service received from the network to the station through the established second radio channel and transmitting a data frame to the near access point connected with the target station by switching a channel to the first radio channel; and a time flow checker for periodically checking whether the present time belongs to a period for a wireless connection establishment with the near access point or with the station, or a period for providing a data frame to the near access point or to the station, and controlling switching of the radio channel according to the above checking result, wherein the frame bridge provider transmits and receives a data frame to/from the near access points through the first radio channel after transmitting a Bridge Packet Data Unit (BPDU) including bridge information of near access points to the near access points, wherein the bridge information of near access points is obtained through transmitting a request to send (RTS) frame which requests the bridge frame BPDU to the near access points and receiving the bridge frame BPDU with a clear to send (CTS) frame from the near access points.