Patent ID: 8724629

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving layer two (L2) communications for a plurality of customer networks at a plurality of provider edge (PE) routers, wherein the PE routers provide a Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) through a provider network for the plurality of customer networks, wherein the PE routers provide an Ethernet service in which each customer network is designated as either a root node or a leaf node and root nodes are permitted to communicate with all other node and customer networks designated as leaf nodes are permitted to communicate only with customer networks that are designated as root nodes, and wherein the customer networks are coupled to the PE routers by at least two different types of L2 access networks; applying a normalized leaf virtual local area network (VLAN) tag associated with a single leaf VLAN to the L2 communications that originated from the customer networks designated as leaf nodes, wherein applying the normalized leaf VLAN tag comprises applying the same normalized leaf VLAN tag to all of the L2 communications originating from the customer networks designated as leaf nodes regardless of the type of L2 access network to which the customer networks designated as leaf nodes are coupled; applying a normalized root VLAN tag associated with a single root VLAN to the L2 communications that originated from customer networks designated as root nodes, wherein applying the normalized root VLAN tag comprises applying the same normalized root VLAN tag to all of the L2 communications regardless of the type of L2 access network that couples the customer network to the PE routers; transporting all of the L2 communications tagged with the normalized leaf VLAN tag through the service provider network on the single leaf VLAN; and transporting all of the L2 communications tagged with the normalized root VLAN tag through the service provider network on the single root VLAN.