Patent ID: 8279876

Claim:
An apparatus for distributing packets to at least two heterogeneous wireless networks, comprising: an Internet Protocol (IP) layer for processing IP packets received from an IP network; an IP sublayer for distributing IP packets received from the IP layer for transmission to at least two heterogeneous wireless networks accessible by a Mobile Station (MS) and transferring each of the distributed IP packets to Medium Access Control (MAC) layers of the at least two heterogeneous wireless networks, the MAC layers for communicating with the heterogeneous wireless networks; and physical layers corresponding respectively to the MAC layers, wherein the IP sublayer comprises: a controller for determining at least two heterogeneous wireless networks accessible, based on a possibility of communication between the MS and the at least two heterogeneous wireless networks and channel information; a distributor for dividing the IP packet received from the IP layer for transmission to the at least two heterogeneous wireless networks accessible; and a header generator for adding a subheader containing a sequence number to each of packets received from the distributor and adding an IP header of the IP packet to the subheader to generate IP subpackets, wherein the controller determines the amount of data destined for each of the at least two heterogeneous wireless networks according to wireless channel conditions between the MS and the at least two wireless networks accessible.