messaging is a part of the internet engineering task force standard and will not be further described herein the goal of establishing connectivity is to get an ip address for the msu 104 so that the msu 104 appears as a network element within the cen 108 the msu 104 may request a number of addresses from the cen 108 and may receive a number of addresses from the cen 108 block 208 the msu 104 decides how to assign the addresses to itself and the mc 102 in an exemplary embodiment the msu 104 requests two addresses from the cen 108 e g one address for the msu 104 and one for the mc 102 once the addresses are assigned to the msu 104 the msu 104 stores the ip addresses in a local memory e g cache 134 block 210 while establishing a link 110 between the mc 102 and the msu 104 the msu 104 assigns an ip address to the mc 102 message 212 in an alternative embodiment establishing a link 110 between the mc 102 and the msu 104 involves reading a cache memory 134 of the msu 104 to retrieve a stored ip address once the msu 104 has an ip address for itself and the mc 102 the mc 102 may be able.