Patent ID: 7525905

Claim:
A method of protecting a connection between a hub of a transport network and a central site/pop via Ethernet interfaces, the hub comprising a switching matrix for data traffic to and from the transport network, and two boards bidirectionally connected to both the switching matrix and the central site/pop, the method comprising: receiving at one of the two boards downstream data traffic of a total connection bandwidth B from the central site/pop; sending B/2 of the downstream data traffic from the one board to the switching matrix directly, and the other B/2 of the downstream data traffic from the one board to the switching matrix through the other board of the two boards; and receiving, at each of the two boards, B/2 of upstream data traffic directly from the switching matrix and the other B/2 of the upstream data traffic, from the other board of the two boards, which is rerouted to the other board from the switching matrix.