Systems and methods of protection switching in a packet network based on signal/service degrade includes monitoring a packet network connection; determining performance of the packet network connection based on the monitoring; detecting the packet network connection has a signal/service degrade based on the determined performance, wherein the signal/service degrade is a condition where the packet network connection is operational, but the performance is experiencing a degradation; and, responsive to detection of the signal/service degrade, performing one or more of notifying nodes in the packet network and performing a protection switch at the packet layer based on the signal/service degrade. The performance can be a delay measurement. The delay measurement can be utilized to determine Frame Delay (FD), Frame Delay Range (FDR), and Inter-Frame Delay Variation (IFDV), and the degradation is when one or more of FD, FDR, and IFDV exceeds a threshold in a window.