Patent ID: 7746892

Claim:
A method of transporting Ethernet services over an MPLS network, the method comprising the steps of: receiving, by a network element on the MPLS network, a Mac-in-Mac (MiM) encapsulated client frame, the MiM encapsulated client frame including a client payload field containing the client frame, a destination MAC address field, a source MAC address field, a B-Tag field, and an I-Tag field; determining a Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) service instance on the MPLS network based on the B-Tag field of the MiM encapsulated client frame, the B-Tag field of the MiM encapsulated client frame being used to identify a MiM tunnel; and encapsulating the MiM encapsulated client frame with VPLS encapsulation fields corresponding to the VPLS service instance for transportation on the MPLS network.