Auto-configuration and discovery of portable telecommunication system

A portable telecommunications device, comprising:

• memory that maintains a persistent record that stores a plurality of data groups, wherein each said data group is associated with one of a plurality of portable telecommunications system nodes communicating in a network that includes the portable telecommunications device and at least one remote network node, and each said data group comprises corresponding node identifying data, system data, and at least one sequence value indicating a version of the system data;
• and
• a protocol management module, said protocol management module comprising:
• a notification module that periodically sends, to each remote network node identified in the persistent record, a presence message comprising the corresponding identifying data and sequence value of the portable telecommunications device;
• a receiving module that receives an incoming presence message sent by the remote network node, said incoming presence message containing data identifying the remote network node and a sequence value indicating a version of system data stored at the remote network node;
• a comparing module that determines whether one of the data groups stored in the persistent record is associated with the remote network node identified in the received presence message;
• a requesting module that requests system data from each remote network node identified in an incoming presence message and determined to have an associated data group in the persistent memory if the sequence value stored in the data group for that remote network node is different from the received sequence value;
• and
• an updating module that synchronizes system data in the data group associated with the remote network node after receiving a response to each said request.