Patent · US Active

System and method for detecting and reporting cable network devices with duplicate media access control addresses

US7512969B2 · kind B2 · utility

33Cited by
16References
37Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateNov 21, 2003
Grant dateMar 31, 2009
Priority date
Expiry dateMar 28, 2027

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04L2101/622
  • WIPO fieldDigital communication
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

The detection of devices with duplicate media access controller (MAC) addresses in a cable network. A cable network device (CND) having a MAC address is connected by the cable network to a cable modem termination system (CMTS) having a gateway interface address. A centralized storage of historical cable modem MAC address/giaddr tuple data is used to identify CNDs that report duplicate MAC addresses. The cable network tracks the CND MAC address/giaddr tuple data of all CND requests that it receives and stores the MAC address/giaddr tuple data into a datastore (such as a database). When a CND seeks to access the network, the cable network looks into the datastore to determine whether the CND MAC address of the CND has previously been stored with a different associated giaddr, which would imply that there are multiple CNDs attached to different CMTSs where the CNDs share the same MAC address. If such duplication is detected, an appropriate remedial response is taken.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.