Systems, methods and computer software are disclosed for providing Internet Protocol (IP) address allocation in a wireless network. In one embodiment, the method includes sending, by a mesh node in the wireless network, an IP request to neighbor nodes; saving, by a gateway node (GW) in the wireless network, the request from the mesh node; proxying, by the GW, the mesh request to a HetNet Gateway (HNG) by providing a transient IP-Sec tunnel; replying, by the HNG, to the GW with a response; forwarding, by the GW, the response to the mesh node, the response including a dummy IP address; and starting, by the mesh node, a Self Optimizing Network (SON) tunnel with the GW using the dummy IP address.