Patent ID: 8774009

Claim:
A method in a node of a Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) telecommunications network, the method comprising: receiving a MPLS frame, the frame having a label stack comprising a first label and a second label; determining whether the frame has reached its terminating node; in response to the determining that the frame has reached its terminating node, checking whether the second label in the label stack relates to a Generic Associated Channel Label (GAL); in response to the second label relating to a GAL, the node: acquiring a context descriptor constructed based on key attributes characterizing the terminated connection over which the frame has been received; and routing the frame for Generic Associated Channel Header (G-ACH) processing; wherein the context descriptor is retained by the node, separate from the frame, after the routing so that the context descriptor is available for use by an operations, administration, and maintenance (OAM) function during subsequent processing of the frame when performing connection verification (CV), continuity checking (CC), or other functions where the identity of the origin of the frame is required.