Forced forwarding addressing communications

One or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing instructions which, when executed by one or more processors of a first node device of a mesh network, cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:

• receiving a first message from a second node device via a first unicast service;
• extracting a destination address from a header of the first message;
• determining that the destination address is a forced forward address;
• and
• in response to determining that the destination address is a forced forward address, transmitting respective copies of the first message to one or more child node devices that are neighbors of the first node device using respective second unicast services.

A networking device in a mesh network, comprising:

• one or more processors;
• and
• a memory storing executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to:
• receive a message from a parent networking device via a first unicast channel;
• determining that a destination address extracted from a header of the message is within an address range designated for forced forward addresses;
• and
• in response to determining that the destination address is within the address range designated for forced forward addresses, forwarding copies of the message to one or more neighboring child networking devices using respective second unicast channels.