Patent ID: 7600040

Claim:
A method of preventing packet loss during handoff of a network access device from a first access network to a second access network, the method being performed by a home agent for the network access device and comprising steps of: forwarding from the home agent a plurality of packets destined for the network access device and sequence numbers for the packets to a current care-of Internet Protocol (IP) address for the network access device; buffering at the home agent, in a respective buffer associated with the network device of a plurality of buffers at the home agent, the plurality of packets destined for the network access device in accordance with said sequence numbers, wherein each one of said plurality of buffers supports a different network access device; receiving at the home agent the sequence number from the network access device that was last received by the network access device after handoff to the second access network, and receiving a new care-of IP address for the network access device on the second network; and resending from the home agent packets to the network access device at the new care-of IP address, starting with the last received sequence number from the network access device after handoff to the second access network, wherein the home agent is a single device in performing all of said forwarding step, said buffering step, said receiving step and said resending step.