An exemplary system includes a mobile telephone switching office (“MTSO”) subsystem having a first aggregation router and a second aggregation router, and a mobile telephone cell site router communicatively connected to the MTSO subsystem via a network backhaul connection. The cell site router is configured to establish at least one communication tunnel from the cell site router to the first aggregation router, establish at least one backup communication tunnel from the cell site router to the second aggregation router, detect at least one traffic forwarding failure associated with the communication tunnel, and redirect network backhaul traffic directed to the first aggregation router via the communication tunnel to the second aggregation router via the backup communication tunnel in response to the detected traffic forwarding failure. In certain embodiments, establishment of the backup communication tunnel includes pre-signaling the backup communication tunnel as backup to the communication tunnel.