Methods, systems, and computer program products for implementing link redundancy in a media gateway are provided according to one method, a media gateway link protection group is provisioned to associate with a common VLAN a common virtual local area network (VLAN) primary and secondary links associated with at least one line card in a media gateway. The primary and secondary links are connected using a cross connection between ports associated with the at least one line card. At run time, traffic is automatically bridged between the primary and secondary links using the common VLAN and the cross connection.