Patent ID: 8549570

Claim:
A method by a pipe control node for managing network resources that are used to transport network traffic, the method comprising: allocating network resources to a virtual pipe for transporting a plurality of multimedia streams through the network; monitoring utilization of the network resources by the plurality of multimedia streams transported through the virtual pipe relative to the network resources allocated to the virtual pipe; managing the network resources that are used by the plurality of multimedia streams transported through the virtual pipe in response to the monitored utilization; determining whether a particular network traffic transports a video stream, wherein the determining further comprises comparing a source address of the video stream to a known list of source addresses providing video streams; and including the particular network traffic in the virtual pipe in response to the particular network traffic transports a video stream, and otherwise excluding the particular network traffic from utilization of the network resources allocated to the virtual pipe, in response to the particular network traffic not transporting a video stream.