Patent ID: 9071666
Filing Date: 2015-06-30
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method for obtaining a Media Access Control (MAC) address of a selected customer premises equipment (CPE) comprising: storing a virtual MAC address, for all CPE in an access network, where each virtual MAC address represents a bridge port in one of a plurality of access nodes; sending a unicast loopback message, with a destination address set to the virtual MAC address associated with the selected CPE, from the edge router towards the selected CPE; receiving the unicast loopback message at all of the plurality of access nodes; discarding the unicast loopback message at access nodes of the plurality of access nodes which do not recognize the virtual MAC address; sending a multicast loopback message from one of the access nodes of the plurality of access nodes which recognizes the virtual MAC address toward the selected CPE, where the one access node has the bridge port that is associated with the CPE, and where the multicast loopback message has a destination address set to a multicast MAC address; receiving the multicast loopback message at the selected CPE; sending a unicast loopback reply message from the selected CPE to the edge router, where the unicast loopback reply message has a source address set to the MAC address of the selected CPE; and receiving the unicast loopback reply message at the edge router so that the edge router is able to obtain the MAC address of the selected CPE.