Patent ID: 8687616

Claim:
A method of operating a communications system, the method comprising: in a wireless device configured to provide wireless access to a wireless wide area network (WWAN) over a wireless local area network (WLAN) established by the wireless device for at least a user device, transferring a WLAN beacon signal from the wireless device for receipt by the user device accessing the WLAN, wherein the WLAN beacon signal comprises packets identifying the WLAN; receiving WWAN signals into the wireless device from at least one wireless access node of the WWAN, and identifying at least one of a signal strength and data rate of a wireless access node of the WWAN based on at least the WWAN signals; determining WWAN characteristics for insertion into the WLAN beacon signal, wherein the WWAN characteristics are selected from at least one of the signal strength of the wireless access node, the data rate of the wireless access node, and battery status of the wireless device; and inserting at least one characteristic indicator into headers of the packets of the WLAN beacon signal indicating the WWAN characteristics.