Patent ID: 7050416

Claim:
A method for communicating at least one data packet among mobile terminal users served by a General Packet Radio Service Network having at least one source service node for managing at least one radio access network and performing identification and authentication of mobile terminal users on the radio access network served by the source service node and a gateway node for establishing a packet data protocol (PDP)context with the mobile terminal user upon initial attachment, and for establishing a communications path between the mobile terminal user and an external network, comprising the steps of: identifying and authenticating the mobile terminal user at the source service node in the network; caching at the source service node in the network a packet from the mobile terminal user, the packet having a destination IP address; checking at the source service node whether the destination IP address of the packet identifies any mobile terminal users served by each radio access network managed by the source service node in accordance with the PDP context assigned upon initial attachment, and if so, routing the packet to a destination mobile terminal user identified by the destination IP address in the packet, otherwise routing the packet to a gateway when the destination IP address identifies an external destination destined to receive the packet, wherein the checking step includes querying a routing table maintained by the source service node that lists mobile terminal users and their corresponding IP addresses.