Patent ID: 7110375

Claim:
A communications system, comprising: a home network having a home agent coupled to a home network computer system; a virtual private network residing on the home network; a foreign network having a foreign agent coupled to a foreign network computer system; and a mobile node associated with the virtual private network and located on the foreign network, said mobile node receiving information packets having a virtual private network identifier extension that designates the virtual private network associated with said mobile node, and a predetermined amount of data address space to identify a virtual network authority and a specified virtual private network of a plurality of associated virtual private networks, said virtual private network identifier extension transmitted in a registration message and being encapsulated in the information packets for tunneling between the home agent and the foreign agent, and said virtual private network identifier extension having two parts, with a first part identifying a first address component of the virtual private network and a second part identifying a second address component associated with the first component, said first component having a plurality of associated second address components.