Patent ID: 8923161

Claim:
A method of providing a C-tagged service interface, in a Provider Edge Bridge, wherein the Provider Edge Bridge includes a Customer Virtual Local Area Network (C-VLAN) component having a Customer Edge Port (CEP) and a plurality of Provider Edge Ports (PEPs) and includes a first Service Virtual Local Area Network (S-VLAN) component connected to the C-VLAN component and to a Provider Bridged Network, the method comprising: implementing in the Provider Edge Bridge, a second S-VLAN component connected to the C-VLAN component, to the first S-VLAN component, and to customer equipments; and configuring the first S-VLAN component, the second S-VLAN component, and the C-VLAN component to provide the C-tagged service interface by: designating as S-VLAN Remote Customer Ports (RCPs), a plurality of ports on the first S-VLAN component facing the Provider Bridged Network when the ports are connecting internal services in the Provider Bridged Network to provide the C-tagged service interface to the customer equipments; configuring by the RCPs, a set of S-VLAN Identifiers (S-VIDs) to be treated as a C-tagged type of Remote Customer Service Interface (R-CSI); configuring by the RCPs, an S-VID merging table identifying the set of S-VIDs in the Provider Bridged Network to be merged into a single tunneled S-VLAN service; assigning a distinct Customer Network Port (CNP) on the first S-VLAN component to each of the configured S-VIDs; configuring a plurality of CNPs on the first S-VLAN component one-to-one to a set of the PEPs on the C-VLAN component according to the S-VID merging table; configuring the CEP on the C-VLAN component to connect to a CNP on the second S-VLAN component; and configuring a Provider Network Port (PNP) facing the customer equipments on the second S-VLAN component with the S-VID for the single tunneled S-VLAN service.