Patent ID: 7450497

Claim:
In a mesh network, a network element for providing protection switching in a 1:N shared mesh protection scheme having a first protection path associated with a pair of working paths selected from the N working paths, the network element comprising: a) a link for connecting the network element to a first working path of the pair of working paths in a path layer of the network, the path layer including a plurality of interconnected network elements; b) a routing table accessible by the network element, the routing table for having local protection channel information associated with a local protection segment separate from the first protection path, the local protection segment connecting the network element and one of the interconnected network elements adjacent to the network element; and c) an identification module for using the local protection channel information to identify an available protection channel on the local protection segment in the event of failure of a local working segment of the first working path, the local working segment connecting the network element and said one of the adjacent interconnected network elements; wherein the available local protection channel on the local protection segment is used to switch local network bandwidth from the failed local working segment to the local protection segment after the network failure has been detected; and wherein the protection channel information includes a listing of a plurality of local protection channels associated with the local protection segment; said network element further comprising a channel selection function of the identification module to select a portion of the available protection channels from the list, the portion selected to match the bandwidth requirements of the failed local working segment.