Techniques for sending an aggregated beacon in a cognitive wireless network are disclosed. A beacon device may segment beacon information and send beacon segments via a plurality of channels simultaneously. A certain information elements of the beacon information may be included in each beacon segment. Each beacon segment may include channel information for other beacon segments that are transmitted simultaneously. Alternatively, a discovery beacon may be transmitted in addition to a regular beacon. The discovery beacon may include information indicating an operating channel on which the regular beacon is transmitted. The discovery beacon may be transmitted using a predetermined channel bandwidth, with a smaller beacon interval than the regular beacon, or in a frequency hopping fashion. The discovery beacon may be sent on a channel selected based on a regulatory class and corresponding channel information. The discovery beacon may be transmitted on a side channel.