Packet over SONET/SDH (POS) was first deployed in 1996 at 155 Mb/s, and has since become a key protocol standard for building large internet protocol (IP) backbones. Networks worldwide now carry POS traffic at line rates of 622 Mb/s and 2.5 Gb/s to accomodate the explosion in internet traffic. This technology note examines the key features of POS, focusing on layers 1 and 2 where the hardware processing takes place.