Patent ID: 7848228

Claim:
A communication system for performing communication in an RPR (Resilient Packet Ring) network, the communication system comprising: a first physical link and a plurality of second physical links installed at a span where a transfer bandwidth is locally increased in the RPR network, the second physical links being capable of covering the increased transfer bandwidth; a first node to which a first communication card is mounted, the first communication card including a load sharing section for regarding the second physical links as one virtual link called a link aggregation, and for performing load sharing and outputting data to the second physical links; and a second node to which a second communication card is mounted, the second communication card including a collecting section for collecting data transmitted through the second physical links and for outputting the data according to the destination thereof; wherein, when traffic of the first physical link exceeds the transfer bandwidth, the load sharing section enables a link aggregation function and performs the load sharing with the link aggregation and outputs data to the second physical links; wherein, when traffic of the first physical link does not exceed the transfer bandwidth, the load sharing section disables the link aggregation function and outputs data to the first physical link; and wherein, when the RPR network has an RPR ring form, the second communication card transmits a connection-state report for reporting the connection states of the second physical links to the first communication card through an RPR ring route in one direction, and the load sharing section of the first communication card controls load sharing according to the connection-state report for the second physical links formed on an RPR ring route in the other direction to generate the link aggregation for a unidirectional RPR ring route at the span where the transfer bandwidth is locally increased in the RPR network, and sets a non-uniform transfer bandwidth path at the span.