said by PapaDos:PAT stands for Port Address Translation. All the "port forwarding" features of the low cost routers are based on PAT.
In terms of a spec it appears as elusive as "SPI" - is it one of those things a marketeer could love because it's virtually undefined? Perhaps one company coined the term?
By the way, I found this while looking at something else...
QUESTION: What happens if 2 LAN machines connect to the same host/site with the same source port?
ANSWER: The LinkSys shifts the source port on the WAN transparent to the 2 LAN machines to keep them separated.
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Perhaps one company coined the term?