response which is translated by the router and sent back to the external computer the computer having the requested service will now be in the deactivated state in the text which follows fig2 shows one possible example of a method in which the router reactivates the deactivated computer following a request for a service following an external request to the router in step 1 the latter checks in step 2 whether or not the computer providing the requested service is active this is usually done using a table in which the router has stored the mac or ip addresses of the active computers in the local area network the table also indicates which enquiry for a service is to be forwarded to which computer if the computer whose service is required is active the enquiry is translated provided with a local destination address and forwarded to the corresponding computer in step 4 if the computer is not active the router generates a u201c wake on lan u201d packet in step 3 this packet contains a synchronization data stream having six bytes with the hexadecimal sequence ff followed by 16 reiterations of the destination computer 39 s mac address the packet is transmitted as a u201c broadcast u201d packet to the local area network after a.