US Patent 9247397 Distribution of multicast traffic through a mesh network

Systems, methods and apparatuses for distributing multicast traffic through a wireless mesh network are disclosed. One apparatus includes an access node that includes one or more transceivers for communicating with other devices of a wireless mesh network, and a processor. The processor is operative to receive a unicast IP packet that includes a special destination IP address through at least one of the one or more transceivers, determine, based on the special destination IP address and a multicast group ID of a multicast distribution table, whether to forward the unicast IP packet to a downstream device, and route the unicast IP packet to the downstream device based on the determination.