SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR AUTO-CONFIGURATION AND DISCOVERY OF IPTO MAC ADDRESS MAPPING AND GATEWAY PRESENCE

[0029] A system and method for handling broadcast network requests for autoconfiguration and discovery of IP to MAC address mappings and gateway presence in wireless peer-to-peer ad-hoc routing networks (100) with a plurality of mobile wireless user terminals (102-1 - 102-n) and a fixed network (104) with a plurality of access nodes (106-1 - 106-n) for providing nodes access to fixed network. The significant portion of a node's IP addres s is calculated by applying a hashing function to the six-byte hardware (MAC) address. The significant portion is appended to routing advertisements, and thereby propagates passively to other network nodes. DHCP and ARP requests, as well as other broadcast type requests, are handled by the local network stac k of a node, without requiring a broadcast transmission over the wireless channel.