Patent ID: 7447176

Claim:
At a wireless device in a wireless local area network environment that includes a plurality of wireless access points and a wireless device that is currently associated with a current wireless access point from among the plurality of wireless access points, a method for determining whether the wireless device should roam to associate with another of the wireless access points, the method comprising the following performed by the wireless device: an act of calculating an association quality for the current wireless access point based on a plurality of parameters relevant to the quality of the current association including received signal strength measurements, error rate observations, and an access point availability parameter; an act of determining that the association quality for the current wireless access point is insufficient, the determination indicating that the association quality is below a user-defined threshold association quality value which indicates a level of quality at which the wireless device attempts to roam to a different wireless access point; an act of calculating an association quality for at least one of the other wireless access points of the plurality of wireless access points based on a plurality of parameters relevant to the quality of at least one of the other wireless access points including received signal strength measurements, error rate observations, and an access point availability parameter; an act of comparing the association quality of the current wireless access point to the association quality of the at least one of the other wireless access points to determine which of the at least one other wireless access points is optimal based on a weighting of the plurality of parameters; and an act of determining that the wireless device should attempt to associate with the determined optimal other wireless access point.