IEEE-based Transport Technologies

Carrier Ethernet services can be delivered over IEEE 802.1 standards-based:

• Customer Bridged Networks
• Provider Bridged (PB) Networks
• Provider Backbone Bridged (PBB) Networks
• Provider Backbone Bridged with Traffic Engineering (PBB-TE) Networks

All these networks require some form of layer 1 / layer 2 transport technology to interconnect bridges. Typically, these bridges are interconnected with IEEE 802.3 Ethernet.

The capabilities of each of the IEEE 802.1 standards-based technologies used in these networks needs to be taken into account when implementing any of the four Carrier Ethernet service types:

• E-Line
• E-LAN
• E-Tree
• E-Access

Note that these technologies, and the Carrier Ethernet services delivered over them, can operate over any physical topology:

• mesh (full and partial)
• tree
• rings