Patent ID: 7031288

Claim:
A method of operating a network having a plurality of nodes, comprising: maintaining in a receiving node a neighbor table comprised of each known neighbor node of the receiving node and the communication status of each known neighbor node; receiving a HELLO message containing an address of a new sending node; transmitting a NEIGHBOR message that includes an address of the receiving node to said new sending node; receiving a NEIGHBOR ACK message from said new sending node; updating said neighbor table to reflect discovery of said new sending node and communication status of said new sending node; and transmitting at least one HELLO message comprising only a list of neighbor nodes that have communication status changes, wherein each of said at least one HELLO message includes the address of the receiving node and a list of neighbor nodes that have their communication status changed to a lost status, wherein a neighbor node is determined to be in the lost status when a HELLO message containing the address of that neighbor node has not been heard by the receiving node in a predetermined period of time.