Patent ID: 7633858

Claim:
A method of providing protection switching in a dual ring network, comprising the steps of: monitoring a first line in the dual ring network to detect an anomaly and defect condition or a particular condition and operator command in the first line; monitoring a second line in the dual ring network to detect an anomaly and defect condition or a particular condition and operator command in the second line; translating section/line-level defects detected in the monitoring steps as the anomaly and defect condition to a path-level counterpart; determining a bit error rate of the first line and the second line; coding a signal frame associated with the first line with a first binary value representing the anomaly and defect condition or a particular condition and operator command in the first line, the first binary value being coded in a first unused overhead byte of the signal frame associated with the first line, wherein the coding associated with the first line is selectively disabled to provide bypassing of embedded protection mechanisms; coding a signal frame associated with the second line with a second binary value representing the anomaly and defect condition or a particular condition and operator command in the second line, the second binary value being coded in a second unused overhead byte of the signal frame associated with the second line, wherein the coding associated with the second line is selectively disabled to provide bypassing of embedded protection mechanisms; and responsive to an anomaly and defect condition code or a particular condition and operator command code, switching between the first line and second line in a network cross-connect device coupled to the first and second lines depending upon a difference between the first binary value and the second binary value; wherein the anomaly and defect condition comprises one of bit error rate conditions, signal degrade, PDI-P defects, excessive bit error rate conditions, signal fail, AIS-P, LOP-P, UNEQ-P, equipment fail, and section/line-level defects comprising LOS, LOF, AIS-L, SD-L, and SF-L; and wherein the particular condition and operator command comprises one of lockout, forced switch, manual switch, and wait-to-restore commands.