Patent ID: 8644220

Claim:
A method of joining a wireless home mesh network (WHMN) comprising: broadcasting, by a first node, a WHMN discovery request to discover at least one WHMN, the WHMN discovery request including at least a tier type of the first node and a first challenge text, the first challenge text including a secret key combined with an extended service set identification (ESSID); receiving the first challenge text by a second node in a first wireless ad hoc network; if the first challenge text is verified by the second node to be an expected value, sending by the second node a WHMN discovery response including at least the tier type of the second node and a second challenge text, the second challenge text being derived from at least a public key of the second node and a MAC address of the second node; receiving the WHMN discovery response by the first node, the receipt of the WHMN discovery response indicates to the first node that the first wireless ad hoc network is a WHMN; and connecting to the first wireless ad hoc network by the first node using parameters included in the WHMN discovery response.