Patent ID: 8411568

Claim:
A system for routing Internet traffic over a plurality of internet links, the system comprising: an internet router having (i) at least one input port to receive a plurality of incoming data packets from one or more network users and (ii) a plurality of output ports coupled to a plurality of internet links, wherein each output port is coupled to an associated internet link, the internet router including: monitoring circuitry, coupled to the output ports, to monitor a temporal delay on the plurality of internet links; switching circuitry, coupled to the at least one input port and the output ports, to couple the at least one input port to a selected output port in response to control signals; and switch controller, coupled to the switching circuitry, to generate the control signals using routing instructions; and an internet route optimizer, coupled to the internet router, to generate the routing instructions for incoming data packets using a ranked list of the plurality of internet links which serve a destination, wherein the internet route optimizer is capable of generating the ranked list of the internet links using: (1) financial costs of routing data packets on the internet links, (2) the temporal delay associated with routing data packets over the internet links, (3) a type of data of the incoming data packets, wherein the type of data is indicative of a content of the data of the incoming data packet, and (4) a level of service assigned to the type of data of the incoming data packet, wherein the level of service corresponds to a threshold or range of an amount of time required for the type of data of the incoming data packet to be delivered to the destination.