Patent ID: 7953096

Claim:
A communication system comprising: a source Private Network to Network Interface (PNNI) node; a destination PNNI node; and a network having logical group nodes representing peer groups through which the source node and the destination node communicate by establishing a Soft Permanent Virtual Circuit (SPVC) using a Designated Transit List (DTL) which identifies the group nodes representing the peer groups with only a partial node ID, the partial node ID having only a first n bits of a number of bits of a complete node ID of the logical group nodes, where n is an integer less than the number of bits of the complete node ID, wherein all nodes to be elected as a Peer Group Leader (PGL) within each peer group are configured such that the first n bits of their node IDs are identical and the DTL has a list of a plurality of hops the network including a PNNI hierarchy and n is based on a level of a node associated with a hop of the plurality of hops in the PNNI hierarchy.