Patent ID: 8416727

Claim:
A method for communicating a group message packet among wireless communication devices (WCDs) over a wide area communication network comprising a first infrastructure device, a second infrastructure device and a third infrastructure device, the method comprising: establishing a first communication connection between an envoy packet duplicator module that is in communication range of a source wireless communication device (WCD) and a first envoy module implemented at the first infrastructure device that is in communication range of a first destination WCD, wherein the envoy packet duplicator module is implemented at the third infrastructure device and the source WCD has roamed to the third infrastructure device and the source WCD is associated with a home infrastructure device different from the third infrastructure device; communicating a group message packet from the source WCD to a third envoy module implemented at the third infrastructure device, and forwarding the group message packet from the third envoy module to the envoy packet duplicator module; generating, at the envoy packet duplicator module, a first copy of the group message packet destined for the first destination WCD; and communicating, from the envoy packet duplicator module, the first copy of the group message packet to the first envoy module without first sending the group message packet to the home infrastructure device of the source WCD.