A wireless communication system including a mesh network having a plurality of mesh points (MPs), a plurality of wireless transmit/receive units (WTRUs), extra-mesh local area network (LAN) resources, and an external network is disclosed. When one of the MPs receives a packet, a determination is made as to whether the received packet is destined to another MP belonging to the same mesh network, (or to a WTRU served by another MP), and, if so, a determination is made as to whether there are at least two mesh portals in the mesh network that provide access to the external network via the extra-mesh LAN resources. The packet is routed according to an intra-mesh routing algorithm if there are less than two mesh portals in the mesh network. Otherwise, a determination is made as to whether an extra-mesh routing algorithm or an intra-mesh routing algorithm should be used.