Patent ID: 7158497

Claim:
A system for forwarding data packets to a mobile terminal comprising: a radio access network comprising at least one externally connected gateway node, a plurality of packet routers, and a plurality of radio access nodes each having a respective coverage area and each for establishing a wireless communications link with mobile terminals within the respective coverage area, each packet router and each radio access node having a respective network address, each packet router associating a next-hop forwarding entry with each of the radio access nodes; a first protocol to provide an assigned network address to a mobile terminal for a communications session initially through a particular radio access node within whose coverage area the mobile terminal is located and to broadcast the assigned network address and the network address of the particular radio access node to the plurality of packet routers so as to cause each packet router to create a new next-hop forwarding entry for the mobile terminal, the new next-hop forwarding entry for the mobile terminal corresponding with the next-hop forwarding entry for the particular radio access node; a second protocol to update the next-hop forwarding entries for the mobile terminal for a subset of the packet routers when the mobile terminal moves from the coverage area of the particular radio access node to the coverage area of a subsequent radio access node by causing each packet router in the subset of packet routers to change the next-hop forwarding entry for the mobile terminal to correspond with the next-hop forwarding entry for the subsequent radio access node; a third protocol to define said subset of the packet routers for each {particular radio access node, subsequent radio access node} pair such that only the subset of packet routers are required to update their next-hop forwarding entries for a mobile terminal handoff from the particular radio access node to the subsequent radio access node.