Patent ID: 8005086

Claim:
Method for the exchange of data packets in a network of distributed stations, wherein a part of the stations is supporting header compression for the exchange of data packets while another part is not, wherein one or more header compression servers are added to the network, which support utilizing transparent header compression for the transmissions from/to the header compression-enabled station to/from the non-compression enabled station on a part of the transfer path, wherein the at least one header compression server is separate from a switching or routing device and a compression-enabled station registers to the header compression server in a registration process, wherein for requests on a destination address of the compression-enabled stations and its responses, an Address Resolution Protocol—ARP is used, wherein the at least one header compression server sends a response packet to the request on the destination address of the compression-enabled station, with the header compression server's own address in case the request came from a non-compression enabled station, wherein the compression-enabled station activates an ARP-filter module in a protocol stack after the registration process, wherein the filter module blocks response packets to requests on the destination address of the compression-enabled station from other network stations coming from a protocol layer above the filter module, wherein the header compression server receives data packets from the non-compression-enabled station in uncompressed form, compresses them and sends them out to the compression-enabled station in compressed form.