Patent ID: 8767749

Claim:
A method for providing Transparent LAN Services (TLS) in an Ethernet network, the method comprising: provisioning, in the Ethernet network including a plurality of customer premises equipment (CPEs) configured to connect to internal network entities of a customer network portion, each coupled to at least one edge bridge of a provider network portion interconnecting separate customer network portions, said at least one edge bridge including at least one Network to Network Interface (NNI) port and one User to Network Interface (UNI) port, a full mesh of point to point connections between at least three CPEs in the Ethernet network through said at least one edge bridge to form a transparent LAN services (TLS) instance, said provisioned point to point connections providing a different logical mesh per customer; assigning to each point to point connection of the TLS instance a VLAN service tag; configuring said assigned VLAN service tags at each of the three CPEs associated with said TLS instance; determining, in each of the three CPEs coupled to the at least one edge bridge, a transparent local area network service (TLS) instance association and a configured VLAN service tag for tagging a received Ethernet frame, said configured VLAN service tag based on a media access control (MAC) address of a destination of the Ethernet frame in a different separate customer network portion; learning and storing, at a first one of said three CPEs, an association of a source MAC address to a specific TLS instance, while avoiding MAC address learning at the at least one edge bridge; modifying the Ethernet frame to indicate the determined TLS association by adding the configured VLAN service tag; and utilizing said configured VLAN service tag in said at least one edge bridge to transmit the Ethernet frame based on the determined TLS association to a second one of said three CPEs associated with the destination, without the provider network portion utilizing the destination MAC address.