Abstract: A router node for a broadband Internet access carrier environment scales in the data forwarding plane and the routing control plane. The router node architecture ensures satisfactory isolation between routing instances and satisfactory isolation between data forwarding plane and routing control plane resources bound to each routing instance. The router node has a dedicated control fabric which is nonblocking. The control fabric is reserved for traffic involving at least one module in the routing control plane. The control fabric further provides resources, such as physical paths, stores and tokens, dedicated to particular pairs of modules on the control fabric. The control fabric supports a configurable number of routing modules. The router node may be arranged in a multi-router configuration in which the control fabric has at least two routing modules.

Abstract: A method and system for providing broadband Internet access, possibly on a wholesale basis. High-bandwidth Internet traffic over an Internet backbone is channelized onto input/output ports of a routing device. The routing device contains multiple, individual, full-function routers, each capable of routing at least some portion of the high-bandwidth Internet traffic. The channels and/or ports are grouped to define a network interface, and traffic over the network interface is assigned to one of the individual routers for processing. Routing and forwarding information is stored on a plurality of line cards, which forward the Internet traffic at line speed once routing instantiations are performed by the routers. A network interface and router(s) can be assigned to a customer, either for the customer to use or to provide to a secondary user. Customer access can be altered as needed, simply by reassigning, adding or removing the router(s) and/or line card(s).