Efficient encapsulation of packets transmitted on a packet-pseudowire over a packet switched network

Abstract

Improving efficiency of encapsulation for packets of a first set of one or more protocols on a packet-pseudowire over a tunnel in a Packet Switched Network (PSN) is described. A first provider edge (PE) network element is coupled with a customer edge (CE) network element over an attachment circuit and is coupled with a second PE network element over the packet-pseudowire. The first provider edge network element receives a frame from the CE network element over the attachment circuit. Responsive to the first PE network element determining that the frame encapsulates a packet of the first set of protocols, the first PE network element encapsulates the packet into a protocol data unit for transmission over the packet-pseudowire without including substantially all of the plurality of fields of the data link layer header. The first PE network element transmits the protocol data unit over the packet-pseudowire over the PSN tunnel to the second PE network element. Efficiency is improved through a reduction of overhead on the packet-pseudowire by removing substantially all the fields of the data link layer header of the first frame.