Patent ID: 8570987

Claim:
A wireless communication system comprising: a plurality of consumer premises equipments (CPEs) for sending and receiving wireless signals in a first communication standard using time division multiplexing (TDM), each CPE having a unique MAC address; a base station having a wireless port for sending and receiving wireless signals to each of the plurality of CPEs in the first communication standard and using TDM, said base station having stored therein a look-up table containing the MAC addresses of the plurality of CPEs, the base station being configured to monitor messages received by the base station for forwarding by the base station, and to populate the look-up table with a MAC address identifying a CPE, the MAC address comprising either a destination MAC address or a source MAC address of a message received by the base station for forwarding to the destination MAC address; wherein any one of the plurality of CPEs can uplink a multicast message to the base station to be sent to the CPEs; and wherein in response to receiving the uplink multicast message, the base station sends a downlink multicast message to the CPEs having their MAC addresses stored in the look-up table and identified in the uplink multicast message.