Patent ID: 8472315

Claim:
A method for controlling admissions of data packets across a packet network, the method comprising the steps of: establishing a communication route on a shared medium from a first provider edge (PE) element to a second provider edge element with (i) at least one primary node connected to each edge element to establish a link and (ii) a plurality of secondary nodes disposed between the primary nodes of the edge elements with each node establishing a link with the next successive node and the links combining to establish the communication route, wherein each of a plurality of Universal Data Protocol (UDP) packets transmitted across the packet network has at least one predetermined, fixed port number, and wherein each of the secondary nodes utilizes a Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP) payload type field to determine priority of packets containing the predetermined fixed port number; using a detection device to determine, at each node, an amount of available network bandwidth for transmission of the data packets across each of the links of the communication route; and using an admission device to determine, at each node, whether to admit the data packets to each of the links of the communication route based on (i) the at least one predetermined, fixed port number, (ii) the determined priority of packets, and (iii) the determined amount of available network bandwidth across the respective link, wherein the step of using an admission device to determine whether to admit is performed at each of the respective secondary nodes, without exchanging network bandwidth metrics between the first provider edge element and the second provider edge element through the secondary nodes, and without sending a bandwidth metric signal back to the edge element from which the data packet came.