Patent ID: 8824430

Claim:
A gateway node for routing data packets between a packet data network and a mobile device in a radio access network, the gateway node comprising: one or more physical interfaces for communicating data to and from the packet data network using a Gi interface, and for communicating data to and from the radio access network using a radio access network interface; means for assigning an identifier to a wireless connection between the mobile device and the radio access network, wherein the identifier comprises: an interface identifier, wherein the interface identifier includes: a physical interface identifier that identifies a physical interface from the one or more physical interfaces, wherein the physical interface is used to communicate data packets to and from the packet data network using the Gi interface; and a logical interface identifier that identifies a logical interface that is used to communicate data packets to and from the packet data network using the Gi interface; and a connection identifier that identifies a wireless connection for the mobile device that is associated with the physical interface and the logical interface; means for communicating the identifier to the radio access network; means for assigning a network address to the mobile device; and means for storing at least one forwarding table, wherein the forwarding table includes the network address and the identifier; and means for forwarding data packets between the mobile device and the packet data network based on the network address and the identifier, wherein the forwarding is performed using the Gi interface and the radio access network interface; and the gateway node further comprising: means for tagging a data packet with the identifier; and means for transmitting the data packet according to the at least one forwarding table and the identifier; and/or means for receiving a tagged data packet; and means for processing the data packet according to the at least one forwarding table and the identifier.