Patent ID: 8743830

Claim:
A mobile communication system comprising: a radio access network configured to perform radio communication with a mobile terminal; a mobile core network connected to the radio access network; and a gateway device located at a boundary between the radio access network and an external network or at a boundary between the mobile core network and an external network, and having an interface connectable to the external network, wherein: the gateway device is configured to store a layer address of the mobile terminal, said Layer-2 address of said mobile terminal being different from the gateway device's Layer-2 address that is assigned to the interface, and to transmit, to the external network through the interface, a transmission Layer-2 data frame having the mobile terminal's Layer-2 address as a source address in response to receiving transmission data to the external network from the mobile terminal, the mobile core network includes a mobility management unit and a subscriber management unit, the mobile terminal's Layer-2 is managed by the subscriber management unit in association with a terminal identifier of the mobile terminal, the gateway device is configured to receive a request containing the terminal identifier from the mobile terminal and transfer the request to the mobility management unit, the request triggering the mobility management unit to initiate an authentication process of the mobile terminal or a location registration process of the mobile terminal, in response to receiving the request, the mobility management unit is configured to initiate the authentication process or the location registration process, acquire the mobile terminal's Layer-2 address from the subscriber management unit, and send the mobile terminal's Layer-2 address to the gateway device, and the gateway device is configured to acquire the mobile terminal's Layer-2 address from the subscriber management unit via the mobility management unit during the authentication process or the location registration process.