The present invention relates to a data packet forwarding processing method in an access gateway, comprising: an access gateway receiving a data packet; the access gateway performing learning based on a source MAC address of the packet and constructing a MAC forwarding table; the access gateway querying whether a destination MAC address of the data packet is in a MAC forwarding table of a terminal that is registered, and if yes, performing transmission optimization based on a channel situation of the terminal: for an IP channel, performing transparent transmission, for a QAM channel, performing MPE/TS encapsulation, and for other channels, performing corresponding processing based the channel situation of the terminal; otherwise, the access gateway continuing to query whether the destination MAC of the data packet is in a MAC forwarding table of a terminal that is not registered, and if yes, the access gateway forwarding the data packet to a corresponding port based on a corresponding MAC forwarding table entry in the MAC forwarding table of the terminal that is not registered; otherwise, the access gateway broadcasting the data packet to all other ports except a port that receives the data packet.