Patent ID: 7710967

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a port to receive a solicitation; and a processor in communication with the port and configured to: populate a database of Media Access Control (MAC) addresses by extracting MAC addresses from cable modem registration messages as received and adding the extracted MAC addresses to the database, wherein the populated database contains only MAC addresses for cable modems and the database excludes MAC addresses of other devices operating in the cable network; compare a source MAC address included in the solicitation to the database; if the comparison indicates a match, send a communication including an Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) management prefix to a source of the solicitation, wherein the IPv6 management prefix comprises a first prefix value to be combined with a unique value on the source to form a first complete address; and if the comparison indicates no match, send a communication including an IPv6 service prefix to the source, wherein the IPv6 service prefix comprises a second different prefix value to be combined with the unique value to form a second different complete address.