Patent ID: 8249086

Claim:
An apparatus for flow control which is located in a mobile router having a mobile network as a subordinate, comprising: a plurality of egress interfaces used for communication with a node existing in the exterior of said mobile network, each of the plurality of egress interfaces having a different traffic characteristic; one or a plurality of ingress interfaces used for communication with a node connected to said mobile network; a filter policy list storing a flow filter policy describing at least an association between traffic of the node connected to said mobile network and identification information of one of said egress interfaces to be used for the traffic among the plurality of egress interfaces; and a matching unit for, when a packet is transferred from the node connected to said mobile network, retrieving the flow filter policy of the node connected to said mobile network from said filter policy list to select the egress interface to be used for transferring the packet by referring to the retrieved flow filter policy, a characteristic information inserting unit for inserting information indicative of a network characteristic, with which the egress interface of said mobile router is in connection, into a router advertisement message to be transmitted through one of the ingress interfaces into the interior of said mobile network, a virtual identifier information setting unit for setting virtual identifier information for identifying the information indicative of the network characteristic; a virtual identifier information storing unit for storing an association between the virtual identifier information and the network characteristic; and a virtual identifier information updating unit for, when a variation of the network characteristic occurs, re-establishing the association between the virtual identifier information and the network characteristic so as to update the association between the virtual identifier information and the network characteristic.