technique for fast rerouting of traffic in a communication network , from a working path comprising a link with its downstream node , to one or more backup paths concurrently providing link protection and node protection to the link and the downstream node ; the method comprises enabling the downstream node to block forwarding of traffic , if received at the downstream node along the backup path , towards a more - down - stream node in the working path in case the more - down - stream node participates in providing node protection against a failure of the downstream node , the technique thereby prevents traffic duplication at the more - down - stream node and does not require distinguishing a link failure from a node failure .