Smart wireless station for identifying a preferred access point

Systems and methods for connecting a wireless station to a wireless network are provided. The method may include: receiving a pre-connection management signal from each of a plurality of wireless access points, each of the access points connecting an upstream network to a downstream wireless network; retrieving from each of the management signals characteristics of the access point corresponding to the management signal, the characteristics of the access point comprising information regarding the upstream network associated with the respective access point; analyzing the characteristics of the access point for each of the management signals; and based on the analysis of the characteristics of the access points, identifying a preferred access point from the plurality of access points.