METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROCESSING LABELED FLOWS IN A COMMUNICATIONS ACCESS NETWORK

• US 20110075560A1
• Filed: 12/07/2010
• Published: 03/31/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 04/05/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Verizon Business Global LLC (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: Bencheck, Michael U., DelRegno, Nick, McDysan, David E., Drake, William, Hardin, Ross S., Bengston, Lee D., Chiu, Howard, Kotrla, Scott R., Turlington, Matthew W., Schell, Richard C.
• Granted Patent: US 8,913,623 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/235
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/50 using label swapping, e.g. multi-protocol label switch [MPLS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/10 Flow control; Congestion control

Abstract

A system and method is provided for managing access communications between the service edge of a communications service provider and a customer. Access communications are carried in the form of carrier-tagged flows, the communications traffic being appended with carrier tags having significance to handling of the traffic through access network elements. A building aggregation system is provided which couples to customer premise equipment and interfaces customer flows to carrier-tagged flows used in the access network.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

determining a service emulation instance mapping identifier associated with the first traffic flow;

receiving traffic via a first traffic flow;

determining a service emulation instance associated with the first traffic flow based on the service emulation instance mapping identifier; and

sending the traffic via the service emulation instance.