Systems, methods, apparatus, and techniques are provided for establishing an application layer communications session over a layer 2 (L2) communications connection. In particular, a discovery request frame is transmitted from a first device. A discovery response frame is received at the first device, where the discovery response frame is transmitted from a second device in response to having received the discovery request frame. An application layer communications session is established between the first device and the second device while maintaining an existing L2 communications connection between the first device and the second device.