A method for use in a wireless station includes receiving a fast initial link setup discovery (FD) frame from an access point (AP) between instances of a full beacon frame and determining whether to associate with the AP based on the received FD frame. The FD frame includes FD frame contents and a FD frame control field. The FD frame control field includes a service set identifier (SSID) length field, corresponding to a length of a variable length SSID field in the FD frame contents; and any one or more of: a capability presence indicator, an access network options presence indicator, a security presence indicator, an AP configuration change count presence indicator, or an AP next target beacon transmission time presence indicator. Each of the presence indicators is used to indicate whether a corresponding field is present in the FD frame contents.