definition adds one or more further stoss such that the ln is actually allocated a total number of sros s and stoss that is larger than the total number of strss that were initially available to the ln for contending to join the network because ins also experience increased traffic as large numbers of lns attempt to join the network in some embodiments the rn allocates a relatively large number of strss to an in the rn 39 s association response to a joining in is used in some embodiments to communicate this allocation of strss in some embodiments the number of strss allocated to an in exceeds the number of strss advertised for use by lns contending for network association because a in is typically less power constrained than a ln the added power consumption required by the relatively large number of strss allocated to the ins will generally be acceptable furthermore because a higher level in e g level 1 in of fig1 handles more traffic than an associated lower level in e g level 2 in of fig1 more strss may be allocated for a higher level in than for an associated lower level in note that the rn knows the hierarchical level of a joining in by inspecting the hop count conventionally provided in the association request received from the in the hop count is incremented at each hop traversed by the association request as network conditions change it may be helpful to provide one or more ins with more network communication capacity for example as the number.