A Simplified, Cost-effective Mpls Labeling Architecture for Access Networks

Today, an increasing number of customers subscribes for a high bandwidth internet access. But not only communication speed is demanded. Quality of Service (QoS) moves more and more into the customers focus. Both Carriers and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have increasing requirements derived from new services they want to offer to their customers. A new hardware solution is presented, which can satisfy many of these upcoming demands, the MPLS User Network Interface (MPLS-UNI). The solution offers reduced MPLS functionality to very cheap hardware costs. All incoming frames are provided with MPLS label stacks. From frames leaving the network the label stacks are removed. The MPLS-UNI works with wirespeed. Only a negligible delay is inserted into the data path.