Cisco Technology, Inc.

Patrick J Cunningham

Christian Schmutzer

Onkar R Deshpande

Interworking between different layer two (L2) medias using network tunnels is provided by receiving, at a virtual gateway network element (GNE), a packet from a first L2 media type network for transmission to a second L2 media type network under the control of a different entities, wherein the first and second L2 media type networks are incompatible for direct packet transmission; removing, at the virtual GNE, ethernet encapsulation from the packet; re-encapsulating, at a network device located between the virtual GNE and a packet network, the packet in a multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) encapsulation; forwarding, over the packet network, the packet from the network device to a digital communication channel (DCC) associated with the second L2 media type network; replacing, at the DCC, the MPLS encapsulation with a link access protocol (LAP) encapsulation; and transmitting the packet encapsulated with the LAP encapsulation to the second L2 media type network.

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Pembroke, MA, United States of America

Patrick J Cunningham