Patent ID: 7801123

Claim:
An access node configured for facilitating residential routing functionality, comprising: a virtual local area network (VLAN) identifier exclusively associated with an instance of a residential router used to direct traffic to a default router; a fixed match forwarding table formed through an operation at the access node and exclusively populated with host entries learned during at least one of residential router authentication and IP address assignment utilized for transmitting traffic from the default router to the residential router; and an ARP table containing MAC address/IP address associations wherein the access node receives an ARP request from the default router, checks the ARP table to discover if an IP address of the residential router exists, and if it does exist, generates an ARP reply message to the default router using a MAC address of the access node, and if it does not exist, terminates the ARP request by taking no further action and further comprising: at least one logical interface configured for being associated with the instance of the residential router; and an IP subnet associated with at least the instance of the residential router, wherein an IP packet received on a VLAN corresponding to the VLAN identifier is limited to being forwarded to one of said logical interfaces; wherein upstream traffic is forwarded dependent upon the VLAN identifier; and wherein downstream traffic is forwarded dependent upon one of said host entries of the fixed match forwarding table.