A master-slave distributed communications network comprises a master node (10), a plurality of slave nodes (12 to 22), and links (VL) operatively interconnecting the slave nodes and the master node in accordance with a routing plan. Each slave node has means for storing an address of the next node in the routing plan for a message to be routed on an uplink to the master node and when sending a data packet to the master node it appends the prestored address and forwards the data packet to the next node. If the next node is not the master node, it, in turn, adds the prestored address of the next following slave node to the data packet thus lengthening the data packet and re-transmits it, and so on until the data packet reaches the master node.;For a downlink message, the master node (10) using a prestored routing table includes in the data packet the addresses of all the slave nodes on the selected route. As the data packet is progressed from slave node to slave node, the address of each slave node which has forwarded the data packet is deleted thus shortening the overall length of the data packet.
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