Patent ID: 8891439

Claim:
A system for providing access to a network service instance hosted in a home network domain to customer site in a foreign network domain, the system comprising: a border gateway in the foreign network domain having a packet transport link to the home network domain; an access gateway in the foreign network domain; and a packet trunk extending from the home network domain over the packet transport link through the border gateway in the foreign network domain to the access gateway in the foreign network domain; wherein the access gateway is configured: to receive from the customer site in the foreign network domain a request to access the network service instance; to request authentication of the customer site from the home network domain; and in response to receiving authentication of the customer site from the home network domain, to establish an attachment virtual circuit between the customer site and the access gateway and to extend the attachment virtual circuit over the packet trunk, the extended attachment virtual circuit being identified within the packet trunk by a service instance identifier and being configured: to forward, on the extended attachment virtual circuit through the foreign network domain to the customer site, packet traffic received from the home network domain tagged with the service instance identifier, the forwarding being based, at least in part, on the service instance identifier; and to tag with the service instance identifier and then forward, on the extended attachment virtual circuit through the foreign network domain to the home network domain, packet traffic received from the customer site.