Patent ID: 6415330
Filing Date: 2002-07-02
Classification: H04L,H04W

Abstract:
A terminal connectable to a backbone-connected LAN and to an ad hoc LAN simultaneously in an environment(a) in which there simultaneously exist a plurality of backbone-connected LANs interconnected by a backbone network via routers and each having a plurality of terminals (referred to as â€œterminal group 1â€ ) connected thereto, and a plurality of ad hoc LANs unconnected to said backbone network and each having a plurality of terminals (referred to as â€œterminal group 2â€ ) connected thereto; (b) wherein a plurality of multicast groups, in which all or part of the terminal groups 1 are members, are set up dynamically within a network constituted by said backbone network and said backbone-connected LANs; (c) identifiers which identify respective ones of said multicast groups are defined for said multicast groups; (d) communication between the members constituting said multicast groups is performed using the identifiers which identify said multicast groups; and (e) all or part of the terminal groups 2 are capable of communicating simultaneously not only with terminals connected to said ad hoc LANs to which said terminal groups 2 are connected but also with terminals connected to said backbone-connected LANs; (f) said terminal being capable of communicating simultaneously not only with terminals connected to said ad hoc LANs but also with terminals connected to said backbone-connected LAN; (g) said terminal comprising: (1) a transceiver for ad hoc LAN purposes for sending signals to and receiving signals from transmission media constituting said ad hoc LANs; (2) a transceiver for backbone-connected LAN purposes for sending signals to and receiving signals from transmission media constituting said backbone-connected LANs; (3) a device driver for ad hoc LAN purposes corresponding to said transceiver for ad hoc LAN purposes; (4) a device driver for backbone-connected LAN purposes corresponding to said transceiver for backbone-connected LAN purposes; and (5) a device driver controller for sending signals to and receiving signals from both said device driver for ad hoc LAN purposes and said device driver for backbone-connected LAN purposes via a predetermined interface (referred to as â€œinterface 1â€ ), and sending signals to and receiving signals from network layer software via said interface 1.