Patent ID: 6952735

Claim:
An arrangement for distributing IP-addresses in a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) network, said arrangement comprising: a global processor in the GPRS network that stores a global pool of available IP-addresses; and a plurality of application processors in associated external networks connected to the GPRS network, each of the application processors comprising: means for storing a plurality of IP-addresses in an internal pool of IP-addresses, wherein the number of IP-addresses in the internal pool of a given application processor is dynamically adjusted to minimize the amount of traffic required to request and distribute IP-addresses between the global processor and the given application processor while ensuring that a sufficient number of IP-addresses are available to serve all requests for additional IP-addresses from users in the application processor's associated external network; means for supplying an IP-address from the application processor's internal pool to a user in the application processor's associated external network upon request; and means for requesting an additional IP-address from the global processor when the application processor's internal pool of IP-addresses is empty or nearly empty; wherein the global processor comprises: means for transferring from the global pool to a requesting application processor, a block of IP-addresses comprising a plurality of IP-addresses in response to a request for an additional IP-address from the requesting application processor; and means for dynamically adjusting the size of the blocks of IP-addresses transferred to the application processors to minimize the amount of traffic required for the application processors to request IP-addresses from the global processor and for the global processor to distribute IP-addresses to the application processors, while also ensuring that each application processor has a sufficient number of IP-addresses available to serve all requests for additional IP-addresses from users in each application processor's associated external network; wherein the global processor transfers a larger block of IP-addresses to an application processor that receives a greater number of requests for IP-addresses from users in the application processor's associated external network.