Specifying service combinations in pre-association discovery

1. A device comprising:

at least one processor configured to:

determine at least one combination of services of interest;

encode the at least one combination of the services of interest;

generate a pre-association request message that includes identifiers of the services of interest, wherein the pre-association request message further includes the encoded at least one combination of the services of interest separate from the identifiers of the services of interest; and

transmit the pre-association request message.

2. The device of claim 1 , wherein each of the services of interest is associated with a service name and each of the identifiers comprises at least a portion of a hash of the service name of the associated service of interest.

3. The device of claim 1 , wherein the at least one combination of the services of interest comprises two different combinations of the services of interest, each of the services of interest is included in at least one of the two different combinations of the services of interest, and at least one of the services of interest is not included in both of the two different combinations of the services of interest.

4. The device of claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is further configured to:

receive, from another device, a pre-association response message responsive to the pre-association request message, the pre-association response message indicating that the another device provides the at least one combination of the services of interest;

determine, based at least in part on the pre-association request message, to authenticate and associate with the another device; and

access, responsive to authenticating and associating with the another device, the at least one combination of the services of interest.

5. The device of claim 4 , wherein the pre-association request message comprises a probe request message and the pre-association response message comprises a probe response message.

6. The device of claim 1 , wherein the encoded at least one combination of the services of interest is represented in a canonical sum-of-products form.

7. The device of claim 1 , wherein the encoded at least one combination of the services of interest is represented in at least one of: a canonical product-of-sums form or a sum-of-positive-products form.

8. The device of claim 1 , wherein the encoded at least one combination of the services of interest comprises a total number of the services of interest and a requested minimum number of the services of interest.

9. The device of claim 8 , wherein when the minimum requested number of the services of interest is set to zero, the encoded at least one combination of the services of interest further comprises a bitmap indicating the at least one combination of the services of interest in a canonical sum-of-products form.

10. A method comprising:

identifying services of interest;

determining a plurality of combinations of the services of interest;

generating a pre-association request message that identifies the services of interest and the plurality of combinations of the services of interest; and

transmitting the pre-association request message.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the plurality of combinations of the services of interest comprises two different combinations of the services of interest, each of the services of interest is included in at least one of the two different combinations of the services of interest, and at least one of the services of interest is not included in both of the two different combinations of the services of interest.

12. The method of claim 11 , further comprising:

receiving, from another device, a pre-association response message responsive to the pre-association request message, the pre-association response message indicating that the another device provides the at least one combination of the services of interest;

determining, based at least in part on the pre-association request message, to authenticate and associate with the another device; and

accessing, responsive to authenticating and associating with the another device, the at least one combination of the services of interest.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein the pre-association request message comprises a probe request message and the pre-association response message comprises a probe response message.

14. The method of claim 12 , wherein the pre-association request message comprises a first value that identifies a total number of the services of interest and a second value that identifies a requested number of the services of interest.

15. The method of claim 14 , wherein when the second value that identifies the requested number of the services of interest is set to zero, the pre-association request message further comprises a bitmap indicating the plurality of combinations of the services of interest in a canonical sum-of-products form.

16. A computer program product comprising code stored in a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, the code comprising:

code to determine a plurality of combinations of a plurality of available services;

code to encode the plurality of the combinations of the plurality of available services;

code to generate a pre-association message that includes the encoded plurality of combinations of the plurality of available services; and

code to transmit the pre-association message.

17. The computer program product of claim 16 , wherein the plurality of combinations of the plurality of available services comprises two different combinations of the plurality of available services, each of the plurality of available services is included in at least one of the two different combinations of the plurality of available services, and at least one of the plurality of available services is not included in both of the two different combinations of the available services.

18. The computer program product of claim 16 , wherein the code further comprises:

code to receive, from a device, a request to authenticate and associate responsive to the pre-association message;

code to authenticate and associate the device; and

code to provide the at least one of the plurality of combinations of the plurality of available services to the device.

19. The computer program product of claim 16 , wherein the encoded plurality of combinations of the plurality of available services is represented in at least one of: a canonical sum-of-products form, a canonical product-of-sums form, or a sum-of-positive-products form.

20. The computer program product of claim 19 , wherein the pre-association message further comprises a bitmap indicating the plurality of combinations of the plurality of available services in the canonical sum-of-products form.