Use of Switching for Optimizing Transport Costs for Bandwidth Services

A method comprising:

• receiving, with circuitry of a network controller, information indicative of characteristics of incoming data traffic in an information transport network, the information transport network comprising at least one packet switched layer and at least one transport layer;
• determining, with circuitry of the network controller, based on the characteristics of the incoming data traffic, to transport the incoming data traffic through at least one determined layer, the at least one determined layer being at least one of the packet switched layer and the transport layer;
• determining, with circuitry of the network controller, at least one route for the incoming data traffic through the at least one determined layer;
• and
• transmitting, with circuitry of the network controller, a signal containing computer executable instructions to at least one switch, upstream of the information transport network, to configure the switch to steer the incoming data traffic through the at least one route of the at least one determined layer.