Over the last decade or so, many companies have installed networks with one or more local area networks in order to allow their employees access to various network resources. To improve efficiency, enhancements have been added to local area networks such as wireless access. Based on this enhancement, wireless local area networks (WLANs) have been and continue to be utilized by more and more companies.
Typically, a WLAN supports communications between number of wireless devices, such as wireless stations (STAs) and Access Points (APs), without any required line of sight for such communications. In general, each AP is wired to an Ethernet network and operates as a relay station by supporting communications between resources of the wired network and the wireless devices.
Currently, a WLAN features a set of wireless devices is referred to as a “Basic Service Set” (BSS). Multiples sets of wireless devices (BSSs) in direct communication with each other may be logically grouped together to form an “Extended Service Set” (ESS). The ESS is identified by one or more bytes forming an alphanumeric name that is commonly referred to as a “Service Set Identifier” (SSID). The purpose of the SSID is to help STAs find and connect to proper APs on a desired ESS.
Each AP may actively advertise the presence of a wireless network several times per second by broadcasting beacon frames that include the SSID for the ESS that the AP belongs to. STAs can discover APs by listening for these beacons. Alternatively, an AP may passively advertise the presence of a wireless network by waiting for one or more frames from a STA that is actively searching for access to a wireless network.
Currently, APs may be configured to simultaneously advertise access to multiple WLAN networks (BSSs) for a number of reasons such as security, quality of service (QoS) or ease of migration. There are a number of conventional configuration schemes that support simultaneous advertisement of services supported by different WLAN networks.
For instance, a first conventional configuration scheme involves the physical assignment of an AP for each BSS having different capabilities. Of course, this technique is costly to implement. In order to avoid such costs, conventional APs can be configured to advertise services associated with multiple BSSs, but only if every BSS is associated with a different ESS. In other words, the AP can advertise different SSIDs for each network type on a different BSSID. While this technique reduces the overall implementation costs from the first conventional configuration scheme, the presence of multiple SSIDs to users seeking access to the wireless network may cause confusion as to which network she or he should connect to.
Yet another conventional configuration scheme involves each AP advertising a single, unique SSID for each active BSS (i.e., transmitting a beacon including a single SSID). However, the AP is adapted to respond to Probe Requests for hidden SSIDs (i.e., Probe Requests for SSIDs that differ from the SSID exclusively broadcast in the beacons). This configuration deviates from current WLAN communications standards and assumes specific client behavior that may not be found in all network configurations.
None of the conventional configuration schemes is designed where an AP is configured as a virtual AP supporting multiple BSSs, each BSS having a different BSS identifier (BSSID) and each BSS advertising services that include the same SSID in order to reduce network complexity.