Patent ID: 7539193

Claim:
A system for facilitating communication between a CMTS and an application server in a cable network comprising: an application server datastore, wherein the application server datastore comprises IP address-port number tuples of targeted application servers; a customer premises equipment (CPE) connected to the cable network via a cable modem, wherein the cable modem (CM) comprises subscriber-identifying information; and a cable modem termination system (CMTS) comprising a CMTS interface and CMTS-identifying information, wherein the CMTS comprises instructions for: receiving IP address-port number tuples of the targeted application servers from the application server datastore; receiving at the CMTS interface a packet from the CPE, wherein the packet comprises a header comprising a destination IP address-port number tuple; determining if the destination IP address-port number tuple of the packet matches an IP address-port number tuple of a targeted application server; and if the destination IP address-port number tuple of the packet matches the IP address-port number tuple of a targeted application server, then: modifying the header of the packet by adding the CMTS-identifying information and the subscriber-identifying information; and sending the modified packet to the destination IP address-port number tuple.