Patent ID: 8885571

Claim:
A system for maintaining a communication session comprising: a home gateway connected to a network; a foreign gateway connected to the network comprising a foreign wireless access point (AP), wherein the home gateway communicates with the foreign gateway via a first tunnel operating over the network between the home gateway and the foreign gateway and wherein the foreign gateway communicates with a hybrid device via the foreign wireless AP; a cellular data network, wherein the network is accessible to the cellular data network; and the hybrid device comprising: a wireless transceiver; a virtual IP address assigned by the home gateway to the hybrid device and assigned by the hybrid device to the wireless transceiver; and a cellular transceiver, wherein the hybrid device is configured to perform operations comprising: establishing using the cellular transceiver a second tunnel from the hybrid device to the home gateway over the network via the cellular data network while maintaining a communication session between the hybrid device and the home gateway via the first tunnel; forming an Ethernet bond between the first tunnel and the second tunnel; assigning the virtual IP address to the cellular transceiver; and sending packets to the home gateway via at least one of the first and second tunnels.