Private network gateways interconnecting private networks via an access network

摘要

Gateways providing connectivity for respective private IPv4 networks to an IPv6 network establish communications between IPv4 nodes in the private network. Network address translation-protocol translation (NAT-PT) state entries are created by gateway pairs enabling translation of IPv4 packets between first and second IPv4 nodes in respective first and second IPv4 private networks into IPv6 packets for transmission via the IPv6 network. Each NAT-PT state entry specifies the IPv6 addresses for the first and second IPv4 nodes, and the IPv4 addresses used to identify the first and second IPv4 nodes in the corresponding private IPv4 network. Each gateway is configured for generating the IPv6 address for each local IPv4 node based on prepending its corresponding assigned private IPv4 address with a corresponding prescribed IPv6 prefix assigned to the gateway. Hence, gateways can dynamically establish communications between private networks without tunneling protocols, enabling deployment of latency-sensitive applications such as Voice over IP.