Growing chip capabilities and service provider needs will influence the outcome of the competition between MPLS and PBB-TE LAN management hardware technologies. The introduction of MPLS (multiprotocol label switching) to provide IP-switching capabilities in scaled hierarchies of routers played an important role in simplifying routing for silicon. But in the middle of the last decade, some equipment providers and carriers became interested in PBB (provider backbone bridging). This is a simple Layer 2 protocol.
This move was a replication in the public network of the bifurcation in enterprise networks between routing and bridging. In LAN-based bridging, packets using similar protocols transfer from one subnet to another. As layer 2 switching displaced all shared-Ethernet LANs by the year 2000, silicon providers were able to standardize switch designs and integrate multiple ports on one switch device.