Patent ID: 8130783

Claim:
A method of joining a cell by using a proxy coordinator, the method comprising: requesting a second device of the cell to operate as a proxy coordinator from a first device that is positioned out of a beacon frame reachable area of the cell and is positioned outside of the cell; transmitting a time period to operate as the proxy coordinator allocated by a coordinator of the cell; informing the first device that the second device operates as the proxy coordinator; transmitting a cell join request to the proxy coordinator from the first device, wherein the cell join request is transmitted to the proxy coordinator within a min CAP (minimum contention-based access period) of a superframe that includes a beacon period, a contention-based access period that includes the min CAP, and a contention-free period, so that the cell join request does not cause a collision with existing cell devices; and transmitting the beacon frame including time allocation information from the coordinator to the first device through the proxy coordinator.