Patent ID: 7843944

Claim:
A system to provide multiple private networks, comprising: a Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) interface configured to receive a plurality of Virtual Circuit (VC) data streams from a packet switched network; a plurality of physically separate local area network (LAN) ports configured to communicate data to LAN ports; and a switching process between the MPLS interface and the LAN ports, the switching process being configured to create bindings, wherein each binding binds an individual VC data stream from the MPLS interface to each of the respective LAN ports so as to communicate data packets between the MPLS interface and the bound LAN ports, the data packets being assigned to an individual LAN port based on the VC data stream binding, wherein an Ethernet frame format of each data packet includes an Ethernet Media Access Control (MAC) address, wherein the bindings are created independent of the Ethernet frame format MAC address and leave the Ethernet frame format unaltered, such that prior to encapsulation at the MPLS interface of a data packet being transmitted from a specific LAN port to the packet switched network via a specific binding and after de-encapsulation at the MPLS interface of a data packet being transmitted from the packet switched network to the specific LAN port via the specific binding, the specific binding hides the MAC address of the Ethernet frame format of the data packet through that binding from other LAN ports; wherein the bindings between the MPLS interface and the LAN ports provide network security by hiding the MAC addresses such that a security breach using a duplicate MAC address on a LAN port does not affect operation of other LAN ports.