Patent ID: 7697501

Claim:
A method of supporting mobility in a communications system, the system including a mobile node, a routing control node, a data packet forwarding node and an access node, said access node serving as the mobile nodes point of attachment to the network via a wireless link, the method comprising: operating the routing control node to receive a forwarding control message, said forwarding control message being communicated from the mobile node to the routing control node via said access node, said forwarding control message being forwarded to said routing control node over a control path which does not traverse said data packet forwarding node; operating the routing control node to establish a data packet forwarding path between the data packet forwarding node and one of said access node and mobile node, said routing control node being outside said data packet forwarding path; operating the routing control node to transmit a response message to said mobile node indicating establishment of said data packet forwarding path; operating the data packet forwarding node to transmit a routing advertisement for an address associated with a first identifier; operating said access node to transmit a routing advertisement for an address associated with a second identifier, wherein said forwarding control message to the routing control node includes a request for installation in a table in said routing control node of a tunnel state entry associating the first and second identifiers; and operating the data packet forwarding node to redirect packets comprising: operating the data packet forwarding node to receive a redirected packet from the one of the mobile node and access node acting as a tunnel endpoint node, said redirected packet including a source address that includes said address associated with the second identifier; operating the data packet forwarding node to compare an additional source address included in the received redirected packet to tunnel state entries stored at the data packet forwarding node, wherein said additional source address includes said address associated with the first identifier; and operating the data packet forwarding node to compare to verify that the tunnel state entry that includes said address associated with first identifier maps said address associated with the first identifier to said address associated with the second identifier.