US Patent 8493945 Characterizing transmission of access nodes within a wireless network

A method of characterizing transmission of a node of a wireless network is disclosed. The method includes determining a neighbor function based on how many neighboring nodes are affected by a neighbor function based on how many neighboring nodes are affected by signals transmitted from the node at varying power levels. For a range of transmission path losses between the node and neighboring nodes, transmission power levels and transmission data rates are calculated that minimize an air-time metric, wherein the air-time metric is dependent on the neighbor function and an air-time occupied by transmission packets.