Patent ID: 7499456

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a first port to provide connectivity to a customer network; a second port to provide connectivity to a provider network; a frame mapping logic associated with the first port, and operable to process a network message received at the first port, the received network message including a particular customer VLAN designation; one or more Cost of Service (CoS) mapping data structures accessible to the frame mapping logic, each CoS mapping data structure to associate one or more customer CoS values with provider CoS values; and a Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) mapping data structure accessible to the frame mapping logic and operable to map one or more customer VLAN designations used in the customer network to provider VLAN designations used in the provider network and to an index value that identifies one of the CoS mapping data structures, wherein is the frame mapping logic is further operable to associate the received network message with a particular provider VLAN designation based upon the received network message's particular customer VLAN designation, and to access the identified CoS mapping data structure and to obtain therefrom a particular provider CoS value to associate with the received network message, and to pass the received network message toward the second port.