Patent ID: 7539216

Claim:
A method of determining a last hop device address associated with a last hop device used to communicate signals with one or more client devices, the client devices having client device addresses for facilitating communications therewith, the method comprising: issuing an address request to at least one of the client device addresses, the address request including instructions for the last hop device associated therewith to reply with the associated last hop address and client device address mask, the client device address mask for use in indicating a range of client device addresses associated therewith; determining a number of client device addresses associated with the last hop device as a function of the corresponding last hop device address and the range of client device addresses specified with the client device address mask; determining client device addresses associated with another last hop device based on another address request; storing the client device addresses associated with each last hop device in a database; and configuring the database as a lookup table to facilitate cross-referencing the client device addresses with the associated last hop device address and corresponding client device address mask.