Patent ID: 8295278

Claim:
A method for pseudowire-in-pseudowire to transport a pseudowire payload across packet switched networks, comprising: configuring a transport pseudowire from a first provider edge to a second provider edge; configuring a tunnel label switched path between the first provider edge and an intermediate provider edge and between the intermediate provider edge and the second provider edge; mapping one or more client pseudowires to the transport pseudowire at the first provider edge, wherein the mapping step comprises decapsulating a data link header and transport tunnel-related headers, prepending a transport pseudowire header comprising a pseudowire label and pseudowire control word; prepending a tunnel-related header; and prepending a data link header; transporting the one or more client pseudowires over the transport pseudowire, wherein the transport pseudowire is transported over the tunnel label switched path and is a separate connection therefrom, and wherein transporting the transport pseudowire comprises transmitting a control frame from the first provider edge to the second provider edge; and de-mapping the one or more client pseudowires from the transport pseudowire at the second provider edge, wherein the de-mapping step comprises receiving a frame, removing the transport pseudowire header from the frame, determining if the frame comprises a client pseudowire of the one or more client pseudowires or the control frame, using pseudowire label semantics for further processing of the client pseudowire if the frame comprises the client pseudowire, and submitting the frame to a control node for processing if the frame comprises the control frame.