Patent ID: 8325676

Claim:
A method for a network layer handoff of a wireless mobile node over a wireless local area network by a wireless access point device, comprising: detecting by a movement detecting module that the wireless mobile node has moved into the coverage area of the wireless access point device; maintaining an available IP address pool by the wireless access point device, said maintaining comprising: pre-fetching by a pre-fetching module a given number of IP addresses from a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server; inserting the pre-fetched IP addresses by the pre-fetching module into the available IP address pool as reserved IP addresses; checking by the wireless access point a lease expiration of at least one reserved IP address in the available IP address pool; and sending a request to the DHCP server to renew the lease upon the expiration of the lease; selecting by a temporary IP assigning module a temporary IP address from the available IP access pool in response to the detection of the mobile node moving into the coverage area; and assigning by the temporary IP assigning module a temporary IP address from the available IP address pool to the wireless mobile node for use by the wireless mobile node during an interim period, thereby obtaining the result of a network layer handoff of a wireless mobile node over a wireless local area network by a wireless access point device.