Patent ID: 8194555

Claim:
A network communications device, comprising: an input/output (I/O) unit configured to communicate first data packets with at least two network communications devices over respective node segments on a packet network; a processing unit configured to receive second data packets from the at least two network communications devices, the second data packets including network performance information generated by the at least two network communications devices in response to receiving the first data packets; a memory in communication with said processing unit and configured to store a table containing network performance information associated with the node segments over which the second data packets are communicated with the at least two network communications devices, said processing unit further configured to process the second data packets to store the network performance information in the table, the network performance information being utilized to alter communications of data packets over the node segments, wherein the network performance information includes information distinguishing between transmission performance of data packets that include real-time content and transmission performance of data packets that do not include real-time content; and wherein said processing unit is further configured to: determine whether the data packets communicated over a node segment include real-time content; determining, prior to initiating a communications session, whether the network performance value of the node segment exceeds a predetermined real-time threshold value in response to a determination that the data packets communicated over the node segment include real-time content; determine, prior to initiating a communications session, whether the network performance value of the node segment exceeds a predetermined non-real-time threshold value in response to a determination that the data packets communicated over the node segment does not include real-time content; and in response to determining that the network performance value of the node segment exceeds at least one of the predetermined real-time threshold value and the predetermined non-real-time threshold value based on the content of the data packets communicated over the node segment, initiate the communications session over a different node segment that does not exceed the at least one of the predetermined real-time threshold value if the data packets communicated over the node segment include real-time content and the predetermined non-real-time threshold value if the data packets communicated over the node segment does not include real-time content.