Patent ID: 8472438

Claim:
A first provider edge network element to be coupled with a customer edge network element over an attachment circuit and the first provider edge network element also to be coupled with a second provider edge network element over a packet-pseudowire over a tunnel in a Packet Switched Network (PSN), the first provider edge network element to reduce the size of protocol data units with IP (Internet Protocol) and MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching) packet payloads carried on the packet-pseudowire, the first provider edge network element comprising: a provider edge bound EIM (Efficient IP MPLS) module configured to receive frames transmitted from the customer edge network element over the attachment circuit, the provider edge bound EIM module including: a parsing module configured to parse the received frames to determine a protocol type of packets encapsulated in the frames, to pass those of the frames that encapsulate IP packets to an IP packet-pseudowire encapsulation module, to pass those of the frames that encapsulate MPLS packets to an MPLS packet-pseudowire encapsulation module, wherein each of the frames includes a data link layer header including a plurality of fields, and wherein the parsing module is further configured to pass those of the frames that encapsulate one of non-IP and non-MPLS (“non-IP/MPLS”) packets to a non-IP/MPLS packet-pseudowire encapsulation module, wherein the non-IP/MPLS packet-pseudowire encapsulation module is configured to encapsulate non-IP/MPLS packets for transmission over the packet-pseudowire over the PSN tunnel to the second provider edge network element in a format that includes all of the fields of the data link layer header of that non-IP/MPLS packet, the IP packet-pseudowire encapsulation module configured to encapsulate IP packets into protocol data units for transmission on the packet-pseudowire over the PSN tunnel to the second provider edge network element in a format that does not include any all of the fields of the data link layer header that corresponds to the IP packets, and the MPLS packet-pseudowire encapsulation module configured to encapsulate MPLS packets into protocol data units for transmission on the packet-pseudowire over the PSN tunnel to the second provider edge network element in a format that does not include any all of the fields of the data link layer header that corresponds to the MPLS packets; and a transmission module to transmit the protocol data units on the packet-pseudowire over the PSN tunnel to the second provider edge network element.