Enhanced connectivity to end devices via access points of wireless local area networks (wlan)

A non-transitory machine readable medium storing one or more sequences of instructions for operating a wireless node of a wireless network, wherein execution of said one or more instructions by one or more processors contained in said wireless node enables said wireless node to perform the actions of:

• maintaining link information for a set of layer-2 addresses, each layer-2 address corresponding to a medium access control (MAC) address of a corresponding device transmitting packets on said wireless network, said link information indicating whether the corresponding device is in an uplink direction or a downlink direction;
• receiving, by said wireless node, a first layer-2 packet on a wireless medium in one of said uplink direction and said downlink direction, said first layer-2 packet containing a first layer-2 address specifying a destination system, with no layer-2 address in said first layer-2 packet indicating that the packet is destined to said wireless node;
• and
• forwarding, by said wireless node, said first layer-2 packet on said wireless medium to a next wireless device in said one of said uplink direction and said downlink direction.

A wireless node of a wireless network, said wireless device comprising:

• a transmitter;
• a receiver;
• a memory;
• and
• a processor operable to perform the actions of:
• maintaining link information for a set of layer-2 addresses, each layer-2 address corresponding to a medium access control (MAC) address of a corresponding device transmitting packets on said wireless network, said link information indicating whether the corresponding device is in an uplink direction or a downlink direction;
• receiving, through said receiver, a first layer-2 packet on a wireless medium in one of said uplink direction and said downlink direction, said first layer-2 packet containing a first layer-2 address specifying a destination system, with no layer-2 address in said first layer-2 packet indicating that the packet is destined to said wireless node;
• and
• forwarding, through said transmitter, said first layer-2 packet on said wireless medium to a next wireless device in said one of said uplink direction and said downlink direction.