Patent ID: 7430205
Filing Date: 2008-09-30
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A packet transfer apparatus for serving a plurality of communication terminals having IP addresses and for connecting the communication terminals through a Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) network to the Internet, the packet transfer apparatus comprising: a protocol processing block for specifying a priority policy for associating a priority level with a path selection method and for selecting one of a plurality of physical paths formed by a plurality of routers in the L2TP network; a plurality of channel interfaces for transferring a received packet to the protocol processing block and for sending the packet received from the protocol processing block in a communication protocol used on an input/output channel; a switch for transferring the packet received from the protocol processing block to another protocol processing block connected to the channel interface containing an output port having a given address; a user information table for specifying a destination address of an L2TP tunnel and an L2TP session, a flow threshold level, and a priority level, in correspondence with a user ID of a user using a communication terminal; and a path management table for storing a path identifier of each path to a destination subnet address, addresses of routers included in each path, and a metric value representing the proximity to a destination subnet or the transfer rate of each path; wherein the protocol processing block