Patent ID: 8839013

Claim:
A method of reducing power consumption of a first network device in a network, wherein the first network device includes a first port communicatively connected to a second network device via a link, the method comprising: determining, by the first network device, that the first port of the first network device is blocked by a loop mitigation protocol; in response to determining that the first port is blocked, sending a message from the first network device to the second network device to inform the second network device that a speed of the link will be reduced from an original speed to a reduced speed; receiving an acknowledgement from the second network device; in response to receiving the acknowledgement from the second network device, reducing by the first network device a speed of the first port to reduce the speed of the link from the original speed to the reduced speed; and advertising, by the first network device, the link as having the original speed in a message sent to a third network device.