Patent ID: 7433362

Claim:
A synchronous optical network (SONET) system having multi-hierarchal network service access point (NSAP) addressing, the system comprising: a plurality of network elements (NEs) electrically linked, wherein the NEs comprise devices having respective NSAP addresses and at least one of the NEs is a network controller that controls the SONET; and a first level routing area and a second level routing area that each comprise at least one NE, wherein the first level routing area and the second level routing area are based on a predetermined prioritization of the NEs as first level NEs and second level NEs, and having a first level routing and having a second level routing for the NSAP addresses, respectively; wherein each NSAP address has an RDI field filled with the first two octets of a respective Internet protocol (IP) address, and an Area field filled with the last two octets of the respective IP address.