US 12,279,310 B2
Utilizing color switch announcement frames to reduce frame collisions and retries for overlapping uplink network traffic
Ankur Jain, Bangalore (IN)
Assigned to Fortinet, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA (US)
Filed by Fortinet, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA (US)
Filed on Sep. 30, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/958,044.
Prior Publication US 2024/0114550 A1, Apr. 4, 2024
Int. Cl. H04W 24/08 (2009.01); H04W 74/08 (2009.01); H04W 74/0816 (2024.01)
CPC H04W 74/0816 (2013.01) [H04W 24/08 (2013.01); H04W 74/0866 (2013.01)] 8 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method in an access point to utilize color switch announcement frames for overlapping uplink network traffic in a Wi-Fi-6E portion of a data communication network, the method comprising the steps of:
reporting a first BSS color of the access point and clients connected for service to the access point, to a Wi-Fi controller over the data communication network;
receiving a local edge client table from the Wi-Fi controller listing each edge client against an overlapping access point, a BSSID for the overlapping access point, and a BSS color for the overlapping access point;
responsive to receiving uplink traffic from a specific edge client on the edge client table, performing in-service monitoring for frame retries and collisions associated with the specific edge client;
responsive to detecting that a rate of frame retries and collisions exceed a threshold, transmitting a BSS color change announcement frame to the specific edge client comprising a second color, wherein the BSS color change announcement directs the specific edge client to adjust the contention CCA threshold for preambles observed from a specific overlapping BSS associated with the second BSS color, wherein an RSSI related to the overlapping access point exceeds an RSSI related to the access point;
responsive to completion of uplink traffic from the specific edge client, transmitting a second BSS color change announcement with the first BSS color to the specific edge client, wherein the second BSS color change announcement directs the specific edge client to return to contention based on preambles of the first BSS color.