Patent ID: 7577138

Claim:
A prefix assignment device for network equipments of an Internet Protocol communication network, the device comprising: a processing module (i) determining a node Nj associated with an unassigned prefix Pj of length L(Pj) equal to L(Rk)−m, such that m≧0 when the module receives a request to assign a prefix of length L(Rk) for a network equipment Rk, (ii) assigning the prefix Pj to the network equipment Rk if m is equal to 0, (iii) performing successive m loops if m is greater than 0, each of the successive m loops fragmenting a current prefix P into two prefixes P 1 and P 2 with lengths equal to L(P)+1 in an initial loop and then selecting one of the two prefixes P 1 and P 2 as the current prefix for a next loop until there are two prefixes with lengths equal to L(Rk) in the last of the m loops, and (iv) selecting one of the two prefixes with lengths equal to L(Rk) for assignment to the network equipment Rk.