Patent ID: 8804723

Claim:
A method for replicating a control packet in a forwarding plane of a network element, the control packet being destined for a plurality of subscriber end stations, wherein the method comprises: receiving a message from a control plane that indicates the forwarding plane should add an identifier for one of the plurality of subscriber end stations to a list of outgoing interfaces for a multibind interface; adding, in response to receiving the message, the identifier for the one of the plurality of subscriber end stations to the list of outgoing interfaces for the multibind interface; receiving the control packet from the control plane, wherein the control plane generated the control packet; detecting a replication indicator associated with the control packet; determining the plurality of subscriber end stations, each of the plurality of subscriber end stations being associated with the control packet, wherein said determining includes looking up the list of outgoing interfaces for the multibind interface; replicating the control packet for each of the plurality of subscriber end stations; and distributing the replicated control packets to the plurality of subscriber end stations.