US Patent 10164910 Method and apparatus for an information-centric MAC layer

A network element (NE) includes a receiver configured to receive an Information-Centric Media Access Control (i-MAC) frame, a processor operably coupled to the receiver and configured to determine whether an i-MAC table includes routing information for the i-MAC Based Frame, and a transmitter operably coupled to the processor and configured to route the i-MAC Based Frame based on the i-MAC table when the i-MAC table includes information corresponding to the i-MAC Based Frame, and route the i-MAC Based Frame based on a layer 2 (L2) MAC Address Table when the i-MAC table does not contain information corresponding to the i-MAC Based Frame.