A communications network (100) includes at least one control station (160) and a group of network nodes (110, 120, 140). The at least one control station (160) generates batches of forwarding tables (300), where each batch of forwarding tables (300) includes a primary forwarding table (305) and a group of backup forwarding tables (310), and forwards the batches of forwarding tables (300). Each of the network nodes (110, 120, 140) is associated with one or more outbound and inbound links and is configured to receive a batch of forwarding tables (300) from the at least one control station (160) and install the primary forwarding table (305) from the batch (300) as a current forwarding table. Each network node (110, 120, 140) is further configured to detect that a quality of one of an outbound and inbound link has changed, generate a message (900) instructing other nodes of the group of network nodes (110, 120, 140) to switch to a backup forwarding table (310) in response to detecting the quality change, and transmit the message (900) to the other nodes.