A failure protection between interconnected adjacent Resilient Packet Rings (RPRs) in a multiple RPR network is provided. Two paths, a regular message path and a protection path, are provided between two adjacent RPRs. The regular path is used for routing inter-ring messages when no failure has occurred on the path. Messages are rerouted through the protection path when a failure occurs on the regular path. Each of these paths has two RPR interface nodes (one for each RPR) that are connected to an interconnection device (a layer 2 bridge or a layer-3 router) through interconnection links. Procedures for detecting failures and generating notifications for message rerouting and fault reports are executed at the interconnection devices. The procedures use periodic keep alive messages for diagnosing network segment and interconnection device failures. The fault detection and message rerouting are accomplished in less than 50 ms.