Establishing and terminating wireless links

A wireless communication device, comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by the processor, cause performance of operations comprising:
• identifying an access point for a wireless network through a connection procedure by:
• transmitting multiple probe requests to the access point, wherein at least some of the multiple probe requests are transmitted according to different degraded sets of uplink transmission quality parameters;
• receiving responses to the multiple probe requests from the access point, the responses corresponding to particular probe requests transmitted according to particular degraded sets of uplink transmission parameters;
• and
• assessing a sufficiency of the different degraded sets of uplink transmission quality parameters for communicating with the access point based on the responses;
• initiating the connection procedure to establish a wireless connection between the wireless communication device and the access point by:
• selecting a degraded set of uplink transmission quality parameters that correspond to a higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) than a baseline set of uplink transmission quality parameters;
• and
• transmitting messages to the access point during the connection procedure according to the degraded set of uplink transmission quality parameters;
• establishing the wireless connection between the wireless communication device and the access point as a result of completion of the connection procedure;
• and
• after establishing the wireless connection, reconfiguring the wireless communication device to cause the wireless communication device to transmit messages to the access point over the wireless connection according to an updated set of uplink transmission quality parameters that is (i) improved relative to the degraded set of uplink transmission quality parameters and (ii) equal to or degraded relative to the baseline set of uplink transmission quality parameters.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored thereon instructions that, when executed by a wireless communication device, cause performance of operations comprising:

• identifying an access point for a wireless network through a connection procedure by:
• transmitting multiple probe requests to the access point, wherein at least some of the multiple probe requests are transmitted according to different degraded sets of uplink transmission quality parameters;
• receiving responses to the multiple probe requests from the access point, the responses corresponding to particular probe requests transmitted according to particular degraded sets of uplink transmission parameters;
• and
• assessing a sufficiency of the different degraded sets of uplink transmission quality parameters for communicating with the access point based on the responses;
• initiating the connection procedure to establish a wireless connection between the wireless communication device and the access point by:
• selecting a degraded set of uplink transmission quality parameters that correspond to a higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) than a baseline set of uplink transmission quality parameters;
• and
• transmitting messages to the access point during the connection procedure according to the degraded set of uplink transmission quality parameters;
• establishing the wireless connection between the wireless communication device and the access point as a result of completion of the connection procedure;
• and
• after establishing the wireless connection, reconfiguring the wireless communication device to cause the wireless communication device to transmit messages to the access point over the wireless connection according to an updated set of uplink transmission quality parameters that is (i) improved relative to the degraded set of uplink transmission quality parameters and (ii) equal to or degraded relative to the baseline set of uplink transmission quality parameters.