Patent ID: 8457028

Claim:
An apparatus, comprising: an access point configured to wirelessly communicate with at least one mobile device; wherein the access point is configured to determine a multicast group membership for a first Internet Protocol (IP) multicast group and a second IP multicast group; the access point determines whether members of the first IP multicast group are in an active state or a power save state; the access point determines whether members of the second IP multicast group are in an active state or a power save state; wherein the access point receives a multicast packet for the first and second IP multicast groups; wherein the access point is configured to send the multicast packet to the first multicast group without waiting for a beacon responsive to determining that none of the members of the first IP multicast group are currently in the power save state; and wherein the access point is further configured to buffer the multicast packet and send the multicast packet to the second IP multicast group after a subsequent beacon responsive to determining that at least one member of the second IP multicast group is in the power save state.