Patent ID: 7548510

Claim:
A method of constituting and protecting a control channel in an Internet Protocol (IP)-based network, the method comprising: (a) allowing two adjacent nodes to configure a communication environment of protection group (PG)-1 and PG-3 control channels, and to identify an active and one or more standby control channels between two adjacent nodes; (b) to configure a more powerful control network after the identification of PG-1 and PG-3 control channels, establishing a detour control channel using PG-1 or PG-3 control channels over one or more transit nodes between adjacent nodes; (c) when a failure on an Active Control Channel (ACC) in use occurs, sending a switchover request on each of the one or more standby control channels and the detour control channel; and (d) performing a switchover to the standby or detour control channel that first responds to the switchover requests sent to in response to the failure.