Patent ID: 7590055

Claim:
A wireless protection system for establishing high availability communications, comprising: a wireline link processor for connecting a user site to a network provider site over a broadband access connection; a wireless link processor for connecting said user site and said network provider site over a backup connection when said broadband access connection is suffering from performance impairment; means for monitoring operation of said wireline link and generating a fault signal upon detection of said performance impairment of said broadband access connection in dependence upon user configured threshold levels of link performance parameters; means for switching user traffic received over a user interface from said wireline link to said backup connection according to said fault signal; means for switching back said user traffic from said backup connection to said wireline link after said fault signal has been cleared; means for switching back said user traffic from said backup connection on said wireline link at specific intervals and determining whether said fault signal has been cleared; means for filtering said user traffic at said user site on receipt of said fault signal for selecting, from said user traffic, overload traffic to be carried over said backup connection; and means for merging said overload traffic back into said user traffic at said network provider site.