Importance

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Abstract

An address is allocated to a host device which is selected to obtain network access from any access point within a given communications system, while maintaining a network bandwidth management scheme that is consistently applied to a user's network bandwidth usage regardless of the access point used by the user. This is accomplished using a communications network having a at least one access point coupled to a first router which is configured to forward packets at a forwarding rate based on a source address contained in each of the packets. A user profile is assigned to each subscriber belonging to an access point. Each user profile includes a pool identifier which corresponds to a forwarding rate used by the router for packets corresponding to the subscriber. If a subscriber attempts to log-on to an access point, a source address is selected using the address pool identifier, the source address is assigned to the subscriber, and each packet is forwarded at a forwarding rate based on the source address contained within each of the packets. The communications system may also include a global memory which contains all of the user profiles stored for the communications system. The global memory provides the pertinent user profile to any access point from which a subscriber seeks to obtain access when the subscriber does not have a user profile contained within the local memory of the access point, such as in the case of a roaming subscriber.

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First Claim