Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) is a way to provide Ethernet-based multipoint-to-multipoint communication over IP/MPLS networks. It allows geographically-dispersed sites to share an Ethernet broadcast domain by connecting sites through pseudowires. A set of Kompella circuits is grouped by a common VPLS identifier to achieve this service objective.

A Pseudowire (PW) consists of a pair of point-to-point, single-hop unidirectional LSPs in opposite directions, each identified by a PW label, also called a Virtual Connection (VC) label.

The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is used to signaling VCs and for auto-discovery of neighbors. A service provider may use either LDP or RSVP-TE or add static provisioning to set up LSP tunnels to transport data through virtual circuits.

The VPLS identifier is exchanged with the labels, so that both PWs can be linked and associated with a particular VPLS instance.