Patent ID: 7843917

Claim:
A method comprising: constructing a Half-Duplex Multipoint Distribution Tree (HD-MDT) for transport of packets from a plurality of servers of a broadcast content provider to a plurality of client devices of a Service Provider network such that each of the servers are operable to forward packets to all of the client devices and to other ones of the servers, and each of the client devices are operable to forward data packets to the servers, but none of the client devices are operable to forward data packets to any other one of the client devices, the constructing comprising: sending upstream to a nearest neighbor node, by a Client Label Switched Router (LSR), a downstream label map message of a Server-Forwarding Equivalence Class type (S-FEC-DOWN), in response, a downstream forwarding state from the nearest neighbor node to the Client LSR being established; receiving an upstream label map message of a Client-Forwarding Equivalence Class type (C-FEC UP) from the nearest neighbor node; and establishing, by the Client LSR, an upstream forwarding state corresponding to the C-FEC UP.