An embodiment of the invention involves a method for selecting an infrastructure mode wireless channel for a tier-2 wireless node of a plurality of wireless nodes forming a wireless mesh network. The method comprises a first operation of receiving information from at least one neighboring node. Then, the first wireless node determines if a collision has occurred with the at least one neighboring node, where the collision is an overlapping of wireless channels selected by the first node and the at least one neighboring node. If a collision has occurred, the first wireless node compares its network degree, iterative count, and MAC address (progressively in that order) with that of its neighboring node to determine which of the first wireless node or the at least one neighboring node is responsible for re-selecting a different wireless channel from a set of non-overlapping wireless channels that are available to the wireless mesh network. Other embodiments are described and claimed.