Patent ID: 8081969

Claim:
A system for providing individual ground-based access network IP addresses to a plurality of passenger wireless devices which are located onboard an aircraft, comprising: aircraft network means, located in an aircraft, for generating radio frequency communication signals to wirelessly communicate with a plurality of passenger wireless devices located in said aircraft, comprising: data concentrator means for converting the subscriber traffic and signaling channels received from said plurality of passenger wireless devices located in said aircraft to at least one aggregate data stream; ground-based access network means for exchanging communication signals with at least one ground-based communication network; air-to-ground network means for exchanging radio frequency communications between said aircraft network means and said ground-based access network means to carry said at least one aggregate data stream; wherein said ground-based access network means comprises: data disaggregator means for disaggregating said at least one aggregate data stream into a plurality of data streams and delivering each of said plurality of data streams to a corresponding ground-based communications network; subnet means for storing data indicative of at least one set of unique IP addresses for an associated aggregate datastream and that are available for use onboard said aircraft by each of said passenger wireless devices, comprising: link address assignment means, responsive to said air-to-ground network means establishing a radio frequency communication link between said aircraft network means and said ground-based access network means to carry said aggregate data stream, for assigning an IP address from one of said set of unique IP addresses to said radio frequency communication link, and handoff means, responsive to said radio frequency communication link being handed off to another ground-based access network means, for transmitting data indicative of said set of unique IP addresses to said another ground-based access network means.