Patent ID: 7983277

Claim:
A communication system, comprising: a first gateway located at an entry point to the communication system; the first gateway coupled to a first media converter with a first dedicated Ethernet tunnel; the first media converter coupled to a first router using a first dedicated optical link, wherein the first router is part of a MultiProtocol Label Switching (MPLS) network; the first media converter configured to map any user communications received on the first dedicated Ethernet tunnel to the first dedicated optical link; the first dedicated optical link terminated at a dedicated physical port of the first router, wherein the router has a static mapping for the first dedicated optical link; the first router configured to attach an MPLS label associated with the dedicated physical port to user packets originating at the entry point when forwarding packets into the MPLS network, wherein addresses associated with the user packets originating at the entry point are ignored when attaching the MPLS label; the first router configured to remove MPLS labels from packets received from the MPLS network before forwarding the packets to the entry point; the first router configured to drop any packets received over the first dedicated optical link that already have an MPLS label attached.