Method and apparatus for scalable,line-rate protocol-independent switching between multiple remote access points in a wireless local area network

摘要

The invention is a system and method to uniquely associate remote wireless Access Points using a switch engine (1). This is necessary in a multi-point wireless network where a central wireless Access Point must be able to receive packets from remote Access Points and then retransmit them, with a modifier, back to the wireless port from which they were received. By using available switch engine hardware (1) this invention takes advantage of lower cost, higher performance and increased features in commodity parts. The invention resolves differences in common Ethernet switch engines that make them unsuitable for direct interface to wireless networks (3) such as that defined by IEEE Standard 802.11 by using an aggregated set of physical ports (4,5) on the switch engine (1). The method allows the switch engine (1) to operate in its normal manner while satisfying the requirements for switching data packets between the Access Points in a multi-point configuration.