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When we put a STA into PS mode, the driver and/or settable parameters (if they are made available by the manufacturer) decide when and for how long the station goes into the DOZE state.

BC/MC data is flooded after DTIM-carrying Beacons. That's why Dozing stations must awake before every DTIM Beacon.

Rather than trying to re-write a book here in the forum, I suggest you get a copy of this book:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0738144495/ref=s9subs_c2_img1-rfc_p?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=0Q6EXHK1K8JCX3YAAYQY&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=278240301&pf_rd_i=507846

The 802.11 Handbook, 2nd Edition

One more piece of information that I'd like to add to this thread is that we figured out a number of months (years?) ago since this thread began why the Atheros cards do so much bit-flipping of the PS bit. Off-channel scanning. When they go off-channel to scan, they flip the PS bit to 1 so that the AP will queue traffic, and when they arrive back on-channel, they flip the bit back to 0 which causes all queued unicast data to be flooded to them.

Devinator