Patent ID: 8503434

Claim:
A machine-implemented method for introducing and configuring a network node of a packet network, the method comprising: routing by a first node packets exchanged between a second node and a third node via an existing communications session, wherein the second node is a radio network controller (RNC), wherein the third node is a serving GPRS support node (SGSN) of a 3GPP network, and wherein the second node and the third node communicate with each other via the existing communications session prior to inserting the first node into the existing communications session between the second node and the third node, wherein the first node is a mobile data offload gateway (MDO GW) device located between the RNC and the SGSN, wherein the MDO GW device is configured to offload Internet traffic exchanged between the RNC and the Internet without going through the SGSN; capturing by the first node addressing and state information of the existing communications session, while the first node routes the packets between the second node and the third node without modification of the packets; and configuring a transport protocol layer of the first node using addressing and state information pertaining to the existing communications session captured from the packets to enable the transport protocol layer of the first node to independently communicate with a transport protocol layer of the second node and the third node respectively without terminating or perturbing the existing communications session, such that the second node communicates with the first node as if it still communicates with the third node, and the third node communicates with the first node as if it still communicates with the second node.