Patent ID: 8254409

Claim:
An apparatus, comprising: a processor; a plurality of network interfaces, each of the network interfaces configured as one of either a network-to-network interfaces (NNI) or a user-to-network interface (UNI), wherein each NNI is configured to communicate with network devices in a first computer network and each UNI is configured to provide service to the first computer network for user devices; and a memory configured to store a process, the process when executed by the processor operable to: determine at least one NNI for forwarding upstream data plane traffic to an aggregation device of the first network that connects the first network to a second network, wherein any NNI that is not used for forwarding upstream data plane traffic is an NNI alternate (NNI-ALT); deny data plane traffic forwarding between UNIs and NNI-ALTs; deny data plane traffic forwarding between NNI-ALTs and NNI-ALTs; and permit data plane traffic forwarding between NNIs and NNI-ALTs.