Patent ID: 8116196

Claim:
In a mesh network, a network element for providing protection switching in a 1:N shared mesh protection scheme having a first protection path associated with N working paths, where N is an integer greater than 0, the network element comprising: a link connecting the network element to a first working path of the N working paths in a path layer of the network, the path layer including a plurality of interconnected network elements; a routing table accessible by the network element, the routing table having local protection channel information associated with a local protection segment of a protection path associated with the first working path in the path layer of the network, the local protection segment being diverse from the working path, the protection channel information including a listing of a plurality of local protection channels associated with the local protection segment; an identification module for using the local protection channel information to identify an available protection channel on the local protection segment in the event of failure of the first working path, the identification module including a channel selection function to select a portion of the available protection channels from the listing, the portion selected to match a bandwidth requirement of the failed working path; and wherein the network element is responsive to path layer overhead bytes of frames transmitted through the network, to switch local network bandwidth between the working path and the available protection channel.