Patent ID: 8782256

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving, by an access node including mechanical components and electrical circuitry for communicating over physical links, a session initiation message to initiate a session from a client device at a particular network interface on a client device side, the particular network interface being one of a plurality of network interfaces each configured to prefer a respective preferred access server of a plurality of access servers in an access-based computer network; and forwarding, by the access node, the session initiation message to one or more of the plurality of access servers, the session initiation message referencing a preferred access server for the particular network interface, wherein the access servers other than the preferred access server respond to the session initiation message with a delay and the preferred access server for the particular network interface responds without a delay, and wherein the client device selects a first access server to respond to the session initiation message for initiating the session.