US 7,689,225 B2 · Method and apparatus for dormant mode support with paging

Abstract

Apparatuses and methods are disclosed herein for implementing dormant mode with paging in a WLAN. Power savings in the computing device and reduction in traffic across the network are achieved by requiring a computing device to inform the WLAN of its location only when it crosses a paging area boundary or is to receive IP traffic. Dormant mode with paging is implemented in a protocol that supports dormant functionality and paging functionality but does not itself provide methods or standards for implementing such functionality, such as the IEEE 802.11. The methods and apparatuses disclosed herein provide the methods needed to implement dormant mode with paging in such a protocol. Generally, the methods and apparatuses for implementing dormant mode with paging basically include (1) establishing paging areas; (2) communicating access group information to a computing device; and (3) locating a computing device.

Claims17

Dependent claims

A method of communicating access point group information to a computing device in a wireless local area network (WLAN), comprising:

each of at least two access point groups broadcasting beacons on an assigned channel over the WLAN for that access point group within a paging area defined by that access point group, wherein the beacons broadcast by each access point group include a common paging area identifier unique to that access point group, and further wherein at least one access point group includes at least a first access point and a second access point;
periodically awakening the computing device to detect the beacons of the first access point and the second access point;
and
aligning a first beacon timing of the first access point with a second beacon timing of the second access point to cause the first beacon timing and the second beacon timing to be received by the computing device at substantially a same time.

1 more element

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Method and apparatus for dormant mode support with paging

Life of this patent

Method and apparatus for dormant mode support with paging

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims17