Patent ID: 8600456

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving from a wireless station in one of a group consisting of an association request and a reassociation request data representative of an Internet Protocol (IP) address of the wireless station; advertising to the wireless station that an access point provides a proxy Address Resolution Protocol service; storing binding data representative of a binding between a Media Access Control (MAC) address of the wireless station and the IP address of the wireless station; receiving a broadcast Address Resolution Protocol request on a wired port; searching a set of IP/MAC address bindings for an Internet Protocol address by matching a target Internet Protocol address contained in the broadcast Address Resolution Protocol request; and sending a proxy reply to the broadcast Address Resolution Protocol request, the proxy reply comprising a Media Access Control address of the wireless station associated by the binding data with the Internet Protocol address located by the searching responsive to the IP address of the wireless station matching the target IP address contained in the broadcast Address Resolution Protocol request.