Label switched ethernet technology

In this paper, we propose a technique that employs advantage of MPLS in Ethernet. Major goals are improving QoS capability of Ethernet and facilitating secure access of commercial service, such as IP-TV or videophone, in local area network. Key solution to achieve the goal is MAC address swapping which uses 48 bits of Ethernet address in MAC header as labels. Ethernet switches supporting this technique identify flows of different applications according to MAC addresses. ARP or ICMPv6 is used for terminal-to-terminal label negotiation and path establishment. Policy can be imposed in controlling user connection. Unauthorized user flows are filtered in MAC level. Compatibility with legacy Ethernet is provided best because it does not require modification in Ethernet format nor relies on V LAN tag