Patent ID: 7724660

Claim:
A communication traffic congestion management apparatus comprising: a traffic type determination module adapted for determining a type of application associated with received communication traffic; and a traffic flow controller, operatively coupled to the traffic type determination module, adapted for selecting, based on the determined type of application and a level of communication traffic congestion, a traffic congestion management function to be applied to the received communication traffic, wherein the traffic type determination module comprises a communication traffic processor adapted for processing the received communication traffic to determine its type of associated application, wherein the traffic type determination module further comprises a traffic application type lookup module adapted for determining whether the received communication traffic belongs to a communication traffic stream for which a type of associated application has previously been determined, and for associating the received communication traffic with the previously determined type of associated application where the received communication traffic belongs to a communication traffic stream for which a type of associated application has previously been determined, and wherein the communication traffic processor processes the received communication traffic where the received communication traffic does not belong to a communication traffic stream for which a type of associated application has previously been determined.