Patent ID: 8305963

Claim:
A method for facilitating local communications between wireless devices at a femto cell without passing communication to a network infrastructure, comprising: receiving a request for a data session at the femto cell from a first mobile device, wherein receiving the request comprises receiving a source internet protocol (IP) address associated with the first mobile device and a destination IP address associated with a second mobile device; creating a first point-to-point protocol (PPP) tunnel between the femto cell and the first mobile device; wherein creating the first PPP tunnel comprises binding the femto cell and the first mobile device together in a communication session; analyzing the request to capture the destination IP address; analyzing a mapping table in the femto cell to determine if the destination IP address is in the mapping table; if the destination IP address is in the mapping table, creating a second PPP tunnel between the femto cell and the second mobile device; wherein creating the second PPP tunnel comprises removing an original PPP tunnel that the second mobile device has with the femto cell and establishing the second PPP tunnel between the second mobile device and the femto cell and routing the data session between the first mobile device and the second mobile device using the first PPP tunnel and the second PPP tunnel without passing the data session to the network infrastructure wherein the network infrastructure includes at least one of a home agent and a packet data serving node (PDSN); and if the destination IP address is not in the mapping table, but the second mobile device is connected to the femto cell, creating an outbound PPP tunnel between the femto cell and the network infrastructure and routing the data session from the first mobile device to the network infrastructure and then back through the femto cell to the second mobile device.