QUALCOMM Incorporated
Co-located basic service sets

Abstract:

This disclosure provides systems, methods, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer-readable media, for co-located Basic Service Sets (BSSs). A BSS refers to an access point (AP), wireless channel configuration, and associated stations (STAs). In one aspect, a wireless local area network (WLAN) apparatus may operate multiple virtual access points (VAPs) and multiple BSSs. The BSS may be considered co-located if they are implemented in the same physical device (such as a WLAN apparatus). Furthermore, the BSSs may be considered co-hosted if they share the same band and wireless channel, but independently signal different management frames. To aid STAs in learning about the co-located or co-hosted BSSs, the present disclosure provides techniques to advertise the co-located or co-hosted BSSs. Further improvements for co-hosted BSSs include the use of control frames that can aggregate information for more than one co-hosted BSS sharing a same wireless channel.