Technique to provide proprietary MIMO format in a product and ability to support a new standard when the new standard is developed

摘要

A technique to provide proprietary MIMO format in a product and ability to support a new standard when the new standard is developed for wireless communication in a MIMO system. A product may include a “hook” to allow for the protection of existing proprietary MIMO mode of operation, once a new MIMO standard is made available to the industry. Once an access point device is upgraded to the new MIMO standard for communicating, the hook may be used to elicit a certain response from a given station to protect the proprietary MIMO mode for communicating with those stations not yet upgraded. In one technique, a proprietary information element in a beacon is used as the hook and RTS+CTS or CTS-to-self condition are used to inform the access point device to continue use of the proprietary MIMO mode.