Patent ID: 8175112

Claim:
A communication system configured to use an Ethernet link provided by an Ethernet service provider to provide a first service and a second service to a user, wherein the first service has a first service priority and a first bandwidth allocation on the Ethernet link, and wherein the second service has a second service priority and a second bandwidth allocation on the Ethernet link, the communication system comprising: a pseudo-wire interface configured to exchange user communications for the first service and for the second service over the Ethernet link and to transfer performance information indicating performance of the Ethernet link; and a management system configured to receive and process the performance information and the first and the second service priorities to determine if a bandwidth adjustment should be made to at least one of the first bandwidth allocation and the second bandwidth allocation, and to process the performance information, the first and the second service priorities, and the bandwidth adjustment if any to determine if a status message should be transferred to the Ethernet service provider and to determine a message priority for the status message, wherein a speed of response by the Ethernet service provider to the status message is indicated by the message priority.