Patent ID: 8289973

Claim:
In a communication system having a plurality of network elements and a service edge, a method of processing communications comprising: receiving, at one of the plurality of network elements, a communication comprising a first carrier tag having a first handling classification field and a first handling classification value included in the first handling classification field; determining per-hop behavior based on the first handling classification value; determining whether the one of a plurality of network elements is a penultimate network element before the service edge; responsive to a determination that the one of a plurality of network elements is the penultimate network element, forwarding the communication to the service edge; responsive to a determination that the one of a plurality of network elements is not the penultimate network element, determining whether the per-hop behavior resulted in a second carrier tag comprising a second handling classification field being added to the communication; responsive to a determination that a second carrier tag has not been added, processing the communication in accordance with the first handling classification value to forward the communication to a next network element; and responsive to a determination that a second carrier tag has been added, populating the second handling classification field and setting a second handling classification value based on the first handling classification value prior to forwarding the communication comprising the second handling classification field to the next network element.