Patent ID: 8634402

Claim:
An apparatus for Internet-Protocol based communications in a wireless network, the apparatus comprising: a network interface to receive a series of multicast data packets; a controller to: identify one or more receiving nodes in the wireless network requesting data corresponding to the series of multicast data packets, determine that the effective unicast rate for one or more unicast data packets exceeds a minimum data rate of the series of multicast data packets using an 802.x protocol; and assign each of the one or more receiving nodes in the wireless network to one of a plurality of groups of receiving nodes; memory storing instructions executable by a processor to convert the received series of multicast data packets into one or more unicast packets in response to instructions received from the controller; and a plurality of radios, wherein each of the plurality of radios is: assigned to one of the plurality of groups of receiving nodes, and coupled to a wireless network interface to wirelessly transmit the one or more unicast data packets to the one of the plurality of groups of receiving nodes using an 802.x protocol.