MAKING ROAMING DECISIONS BASED ON ASSOCIATION QUALITIES BETWEEN WIRELESS DEVICES AND WIRELESS ACCESS POINTS

The principles of the present invention provides for making roaming decisions based on association qualities between a wireless device and one or more wireless access points. From time to time, the wireless device updates a current association quality for a current wireless access point, for example, based on relative signal strength, observed error rates, and current wireless access point workload. Similarly, the wireless device updates association qualities for any other wireless access points the wireless device can communicate with. If the current association quality falls below a quality threshold, the wireless device roams to attempt to associate with another wireless access point. The wireless device ranks compatibly configured wireless access points based at least in part on corresponding association qualities. The wireless device can attempt to associate with higher ranked wireless access points before lower ranked wireless access points.