Method and apparatus for disabling transmission of a packet with aggregated data from multiple packets having an address for a group of network devices

A first network device comprising:

• a first module configured to relate a plurality of addresses of a group of network devices to a first address, wherein the plurality of addresses are respective addresses of the network devices in the group of network devices;
• a control module configured to determine whether both a first packet and a second packet have the first address;
• an aggregation module configured to, in response to the control module determining that both the first packet and the second packet have the first address, concatenate the first packet and the second packet to provide aggregated data;
• a format module configured to add a header to the aggregated data to generate a third packet for a second network device;
• and
• a first interface configured to, based on whether transmission to the second network device is enabled for the third packet, transmit the third packet to the second network device,
• wherein the first module is configured to disable transmission of the third packet to the second network device if (i) a timer for the second network device expires, or (ii) a leave message is received from the second network device by the first network device, wherein the leave message indicates the second network device is leaving the group of network devices.