Abstract: System, apparatus, and methods are disclosed wherewith a group of independent wireless routing devices known as Service Points work cooperatively to form an ad hoc mesh communication network. The resulting Service Point Network is used to provide reliable address-directed communication services between devices attached by conventional means (wired or wireless) to respective Service Ports on any of the Service Points. Attached Utilizing Devices are not considered a part of the Service Point Network and need not contain any custom software or hardware related to the operations of the Service Point Network. To protect the security of network communications and the integrity of the network, the Service Points are assigned internal IP addresses and unique identifiers that need not be disclosed to the Utilizing Devices. The unique identifiers in turn are used to derive public and private encryption key pairs for each Service Point.

Abstract: A mesh network, operating as a virtual Ethernet switch, includes multiple nodes operating as Mesh Network Gateway Interfaces (mesh NGIs) enabled for communication with one or more shared access networks. Selectively coupling the multiple NGIs to the same shared access network provides redundancy and load balancing aimed at improving the reliability and performance of the network. A first architecture is based on a gateway group, including a plurality of NGIs enabled to communicate with a single shared access network via a designated broadcast server elected from among the NGIs. A second architecture is based on a plurality of (physical) NGIs enabled to communicate with a single shared access network via one or more designated nodes in the shared access network. The designated nodes, or Mesh Servers (MSs), operate as virtual NGIs, and traffic entering or exiting the mesh flows through one of the MSs, thus improving packet broadcast efficiency.

Abstract: System, apparatus, and methods are disclosed wherewith a group of independent wireless routing devices known as Service Points work cooperatively to form an ad hoc mesh communication network. The resulting Service Point Network is used to provide reliable address-directed communication services between devices attached by conventional means (wired or wireless) to respective Service Ports on any of the Service Points. Attached Utilizing Devices are not considered a part of the Service Point Network and need not contain any custom software or hardware related to the operations of the Service Point Network. Consequently, the networking technology used to form the Service Point Network is independent of the technology used for connecting devices to Service Points. Services for Utilizing Devices include both point-to-point as well as point-to-multi-point communication.