Patent ID: 7974308

Claim:
A method of providing a Circuit Emulation Service over Packet (CESoP) service over a Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) network, the method comprising: receiving Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) data from a customer; encapsulating the received TDM data and a virtual circuit (VC) label into an Ethernet packet, the VC label identifying the customer; transmitting the Ethernet packet into the MPLS network: receiving the Ethernet packet at a packet processor; in the packet processor, de-encapsulating the Ethernet packet; retrieving the TDM data and the VC label; encapsulating the TDM data and the VC label into a MPLS packet by adding an MPLS tunnel label while preserving the VC label; and associating the MPLS packet with the customer using the retrieved VC label so that traffic carried over the MPLS network using the CESoP service is tied to the customer.