Patent ID: 7920577

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving, by a first data-processing system, a first packet transmitted by a first terminal, wherein the first packet is to be transmitted by the first data-processing system to wireless terminals and wireline terminals based on a broadcast address of the first packet; storing, by the first data-processing system after receiving the first packet, an identifier of the first packet along with a source address of the first packet; identifying, by the first data-processing system: (i) a first plurality of ports of the first data-processing system that only lead to wireline terminals, and (ii) a second plurality of ports of the first data-processing system that only lead to wireless terminals; transmitting, by the first data-processing system, the first packet to a second data-processing system, wherein the first packet is only transmitted through the first plurality of ports as a result of identifying that the first plurality of ports only lead to wireline terminals; receiving, by the first data-processing system, a response to the first packet, wherein the response is transmitted by the second data-processing system; and transmitting, by the first data-processing system, the response as a unicast packet to the first terminal, wherein the response is transmitted as a unicast packet based on the identifier of the first packet.