Patent ID: 7978602

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving, with a network access device, a network access request from a subscriber device associated with a subscriber, determining, with the network access device, when the network access request is received, whether the subscriber device requires a label switching protocol interface for encapsulating and decapsulating traffic associated with the subscriber device according to the label switching protocol for communication with a label switching network; in response to receiving the network access request and upon determining that the subscriber device requires the label switching protocol interface, dynamically constructing a software interface stack on the network access device that includes a plurality of interfaces, each of the interfaces associated with a respective one of a plurality of protocols, wherein the plurality of interfaces includes the label switching protocol interface; and subsequent to dynamically constructing the software interface stack on the network access device, processing network communications from the subscriber device with the software interface stack of the network access device and routing the network communications from the network access device to the label switching network.