SWRU423A July 2015 – May 2016 WL1801MOD , WL1805MOD , WL1807MOD , WL1831MOD , WL1835MOD , WL1837MOD
A Wi-Fi network might be defined so that it is invisible to Wi-Fi stations. A network's invisibility is expressed by not advertising the network name in beacons and ignoring the received probe requests from the Wi-Fi station. Such networks are called hidden networks. Their purpose is to avoid seeing or connecting to undesirable Wi-Fi stations.
Practically, the only way to see or connect to a hidden network is with an explicit manual definition of a profile suitable to this network. The exact name of the network and its security type must be known; the profile's creation to this network will not be enough to permit connection to it. Such a profile must be defined as a hidden network profile. The profile causes the connection manager to invoke a unicast scan, which will look explicitly for a network with this name to broadcast a scan. When the hidden network receives a scan request carrying its network name and responds to it, the scanning station is aware that this network is available for connection.
The number of the unicast probe requests transmitted during each scan interval is derived from the number of hidden networks that are defined.