Patent ID: 7583664

Claim:
A method comprising: providing a plurality of Advanced Switching compliant packets to an Advanced Switching compatible switch fabric for transmission to at least one endpoint, wherein each of the plurality of Advanced Switching compliant packets includes a header and a payload portion and wherein at least one of the plurality of Advanced Switching compliant packets includes one of control information, protection information, portions of a SONET frame, data packets and frames, or ingress synchronous residual time stamps, wherein the providing includes: aggregating SONET tributaries, and encapsulating the aggregated SONET tributaries into a payload of an Advanced Switching compliant packet, and wherein the aggregating comprises: aggregating high order tributaries having the same destination and having the same packet rate into a payload of an Advanced Switching compliant packet, and aggregating low order tributaries having the same destination and having the same packet rate into a payload of an Advanced Switching compliant packet.