Patent ID: 8195120

Claim:
A communication node operable with a communications system that implements an enhanced multi-level precedence and preemption, eMLPP, scheme, the communication node comprising: an input unit to receive an incoming connection establishment communication having a priority-header value that indicates a priority for a connection to be established, wherein the incoming connection establishment communication was sent by a remote terminal that was not pre-configured to establish a precedence and preemption level in accordance with the eMLPP scheme; a priority mapper to map priority-header priorities to eMLPP levels, said priority mapper including a priority association data structure that associates one or more priority-header priorities to each of multiple eMLPP levels; a priority mapping controller to accept the incoming connection establishment communication from said input unit, to extract the priority-header value from the incoming connection establishment communication, to provide the priority-header value to said priority mapper where the priority association data structure includes an entry that associates the extracted priority-header value with an eMLPP value, to accept from said priority mapper the eMLPP value that is associated with the extracted priority-header value; and an output unit to receive the eMLPP value from the priority mapping controller and to transmit an outgoing connection establishment communication having the received eMLPP value that indicates a precedence and preemption level for the connection to be established.