Patent ID: 8547835

Claim:
A network element comprising: a proxy element that is configured to: receive a request from a source node to establish a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connection from a first network address of the source node through a Packet Data Network (PDN) Gateway (GW) to a destination node for an Internet Protocol (IP) flow, apply an IP flow offloading policy function to determine that the requested TCP connection for the IP flow should bypass the PDN GW, and respond to the determination by communicating to the destination node a request for TCP connection with a second network address substituted for the first network address of the source node to establish the TCP connection for the IP flow from the source node to the destination node through a broadband network without passing through the PDN GW; respond to the establishment of the TCP connection by intercepting packets of the IP flow passing from the source node toward the destination node that contain the first network address as the source address and to replace the first network address with the second network address as the source address to bypass the PDN GW; respond to the determination of the IP flow offloading policy function by communicating a Multi-Path Transmission Control Protocol (MPTCP) request to the source node to establish a MPTCP subflow to the IP flow using the second network address as the source address of the source node; communicate the MPTCP request to the source node using signaling that appears to the source node to have been generated by the destination node but which is generated by the proxy element without using signaling from the destination node.