Method for operating a smart antenna in a WLAN using medium access control information

A communications device for operating in a wireless local area network (WLAN) comprising a plurality of transmitters, the communications device comprising:

• a switched beam antenna for generating a plurality of antenna beams;
• a beam selector connected to said switched beam antenna for selecting one of said plurality of antenna beams;
• a transceiver connected to said switched beam antenna and to said beam selector for receiving signals from the plurality of transmitters operating within the WLAN, said transceiver comprising
• a medium access control (MAC) module for identifying the received signals comprising MAC information, and
• a quality metric module for determining a quality metric for each received signal comprising MAC information;
• said beam selector for selecting a transmitter based on the quality metrics, and for scanning the plurality of antenna beams for receiving from the selected transmitter the signals comprising MAC information;
• said quality metric module for determining a quality metric associated with each scanned antenna beam;
• and
• said beam selector for selecting one of the scanned antenna beams for communicating with the selected transmitter based on the quality metrics.