Patent ID: 7826398

Claim:
A method for distributing information to nodes in an advanced metering system mesh network, comprising: establishing a mesh network including at least one master node and a plurality of node devices, at least some of which node devices comprise metrology devices; configuring the network for bi-directional communications among the at least one master node and each of the plurality of node devices using a repeating hyperframe subdivided into a repeating time slot packet protocol; assigning levels to each node based on the number of hops the node is away from the master node such that nodes further away from the master node will be assigned higher numbers; identifying at each node neighbor nodes thereof, wherein neighbors with a lower level are identified as fathers of the node, neighbors having an equal level are identified as brothers, and neighbors having a higher level are identified as sons; broadcasting a message from the master node to the higher level nodes; and assigning acknowledgement sequences to son nodes within messages broadcast by father nodes, the acknowledgement sequences specifying an order of acknowledgement for the son nodes; wherein sons failing to receive messages broadcast from fathers may be identified.