An advance over the prior art is achieved through an efficient method for
the dynamic selection of frequencies with low occupancy in a manner that
results in minimizing the search for such frequencies and the risk of a
large of number of nodes choosing the same frequency. A method for
dynamically selecting the frequencies according to the invention includes
the following parts. A channel loading indicator that determines if the
mobile node needs to look for a new channel. A channel search algorithm
that quickly determines the new channel to be used. A tracking algorithm
that remembers the channels that were most recently determined to be
loaded and hence should be avoided in the near future. In one embodiment
of the invention a method of selecting frequencies for use by a device in
a wireless communications network is presented. The method includes the
steps of monitoring channel usage of given frequencies to determine
loaded channels based on whether an associated channel usage threshold
has been reached and, if the channel usage threshold has been reached,
determining whether to switch from a loaded channel to another channel
based on a probability function.