Retransmission of mesh link establishment advertisements in a thread network

A method for repeated transmission of an advertisement message in a thread network, comprising:

• detecting a start of an advertisement window having a predetermined duration;
• preparing the advertisement message in response to the detecting, the advertisement message being a multicast message;
• transmitting the advertisement message to the thread network a plurality of times within the advertisement window;
• and
• suppressing transmission of one or more other multicast messages during the predefined duration of the advertisement window.

A wireless communication device, comprising:

• a transceiver configured to communicate with other devices within a wireless network;
• and
• a processor communicatively coupled to the transceiver and configured to:
• receive a message from the wireless network;
• identify the message as an advertisement message;
• extract, based on the identifying, an identifier from the message;
• compare the extracted identifier to a previously stored identifier;
• process or discard the message based on the comparing;
• and
• store the extracted identifier for a predetermined period of time after the extracting, the storing enabling a comparison with an identifier of a future received message.