Patent ID: 7535831

Claim:
A protection switch processor of an optical network that supports protected traffic and extra traffic at predefined grades of service using pre-provisioned working and protection channels, the protection switch processor executing under control of software comprising executable instruction code for: determining a priority value associated with a protection switch request message for switching protected traffic from a working channel to its associated protection channel; determining an occupant priority value associated with the protection channel by determining a service priority value associated with unprotected traffic within the protection channel; comparing the priority value associated with the protection switch request message to the occupant priority value; and refusing the protection switch request when a bandwidth of the working channel to be switched is greater than an unoccupied portion of the protection channel and the request priority value of the protection switch request is less than or equal to the occupant priority value of the protection channel; wherein refusing the protection switch request comprises pending the request so that if the unprotected traffic being transported through the protection channel subsequently releases the protection channel, a network element (NE) that issued the priority switch request is notified.