Patent ID: 8144595

Claim:
A system comprising: a plurality of nodes forming a network; and a link-state packet configured to be transmitted by one of said plurality of said nodes acting as a source node in said network to other of said plurality of said nodes acting as destination nodes in said network over a plurality of communication links; wherein said source node is configured to subtract a respective predetermined transmission cost associated with each one of said communication links from a time-to-live value associated with said link-state packet prior to transmitting said link-state packet over one of said communication links to said respective destination node, said respective predetermined transmission cost reflecting a particular cost of transmitting data over the associated communication link such that a respective particular cost is subtracted from each packet transmitted by said source node, wherein said predetermined costs are determined prior to receipt of the link-state packet by the source node; and wherein said source node is configured to determine whether the time-to-live value is greater than said respective predetermined transmission cost for one of said communication links and selectively transmit said link-state packet based on the determination.