Patent ID: 7835378

Claim:
A method comprising: configuring a first transport tree having an associated first root node, wherein the first transport tree is configured to transport a datastream to a plurality of edge nodes of a transport network through the first root node, and the first transport tree has an associated first transport tree identifier; configuring a second transport tree having an associated second root node, wherein the second transport tree is configured to transport the datastream to the plurality of edge nodes through the second root node, and the second transport tree has an associated second transport tree identifier; determining available bandwidth for the first and second root nodes; and selecting one of the first transport tree and the second transport tree to transmit the datastream, in response to said determining, wherein said selecting comprises selecting the first transport tree if the available bandwidth of the first root node is greater than the available bandwidth of the second root node, and selecting the second transport tree if the available bandwidth of the second root node is greater than the available bandwidth of the first root node.