Patent ID: 7664028

Claim:
A metering and marking processor (MMP) telecom system block apparatus comprising: a metering processor measuring incoming digital data unit microflow against one or two specified temporal profiles using an at least two-level metering hierarchy; a marking function using results of one and/or two metering operations to provide an action instruction for a downstream digital data unit handling device to perform an appropriate action on said corresponding digital data unit: an action tag field of a context header record (CHR) specifying said action instruction; one or more additional fields of said context header record in which said MMP provides other information for a downstream digital data unit handling device use; and further comprising: one or more primary digital data unit meters; one or more secondary digital data unit meters each said primary and secondary digital data unit meters including two token buckets; and each said meter configurable to implement a metering algorithm using one or both of its token buckets.