Patent ID: 8693487

Claim:
A method comprising: a) receiving, by a port of a first edge device of a transport network, ingress data; b) selecting, using the first edge device, a set of forwarding information based on the port on which the data is received, wherein the forwarding information includes at least one entry including a layer 2 media access control address, a label associated with the layer 2 media access control address, and an edge device identifier associated with the layer 2 media access control address; c) selecting, using the first edge device, one of the at least one entry of the selected forwarding information based on a layer 2 media access control address of the ingress data received; d) adding, using the first edge device, the label of the selected one of the at least one entry of the selected forwarding information to the ingress data received to generate modified data; and e) forwarding, using the first edge device, the modified data towards a second edge device identified by the edge device identifier of the selected one of the at least one entry of the selected forwarding information.