Selective pre-authentication to anticipated primary wireless access points

Abstract

A wireless device that adaptively makes the determination of whether or not to pre-authenticate. If the wireless device (220) is running an application that is sensitive to latency (also referred to herein as a low latency application), then pre-authentication is performed and latency is reduced during the switch between wireless access points (204,205). Such low latency applications may include voice over IP, video, interactive whiteboard, or video teleconferencing. On the other hand, if the wireless device is not running a low latency application, the wireless device is less susceptible to latency when making the wireless access point switch. In that case, pre-authentication is not performed and processing and battery resources are preserved. <IMAGE>

Description

technical field [0001] The present invention relates to wireless network technology. In particular, the present invention relates to mechanisms for selecting a pre-authentication prospective master wireless access point before the prospective master wireless access point becomes the actual master wireless access point. Background technique [0002] Computers today come in a wide variety of form factors including: desktop computers, laptop computers, graphics input card PCs, personal digital assistants (PDAs), telephones, and even smaller devices. Such devices have the ability to communicate over wireless networks. In the present specification and claims, a "wireless device" is any device capable of communicating over one or more wireless networks, even if the device is also capable of communicating over a wired network. [0003] The ability to communicate over wireless networks has become a universal attribute of computers. As a result, wireless devices can now be found a...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

After all, it is often difficult to predict when a wireless device will start using the primary access point, since the movement of the wireless device is subject to the unpredictability of the movement of the associated users

This pre-authentication process represents wasted processor cycles, power and unnecessary load on the authentication server if the intended master AP does not actually become the master

[0008] Mobile wireless devices sometimes have limited processor and battery resources compared to their larger counterparts

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