A subport forwarding and provisioning mechanism whereby a plurality of subports implemented using slower speed processors are used to perform the packet processing for a higher speed packet stream. Outbound packets are assigned a subport based on their MPLS labels. Once assigned, the packets are forwarded to a particular subport. The output of all the subports is aggregated and combined into a single high speed packet stream and transmitted over the link. Inbound packets are received by the high speed PHY and forwarded to one of a plurality of subports. The subport chosen is the one having the same subport index as the one through which the packet was sent out over at the transmitting node. Conventional layer 2 switches can also be used whereby reserved source MAC addresses are assigned to subports. The switch forwards the inbound packets to one of the subports in accordance with the packet's source MAC address. The invention also comprises a mechanism for provisioning protection tunnels and a method for allocating subport bandwidth to subports.