Method for a wireless station to determine network metrics prior to associating with an access point of a wireless network

In a wireless station, a method includes, prior to the station being associated with a wireless network, wirelessly receiving L2 frames transmitted from one or more wireless access points (APs) of one or more wireless networks that the station can hear, and gathering information about the received L2 data units, including L2 information and L3 information. The method further includes maintaining the gathered information as a wireless network database that includes for each wireless network, a unique identifier of the wireless network; an indication of the quality of communication between the station and the AP of the wireless network; and one or more L3 advertisements from one or more IP-enabled service providers that the AP of the wireless network transmits. The indication of the quality of communication between the AP of the wireless network includes one or more network performance metrics obtained by temporarily associating with the AP, sending one or more probe packets to the AP, and collecting the one or more network performance metrics.