Patent ID: 8416688

Claim:
A gateway device for interfacing a local area network with a wide area network, the gateway device comprising: a local area network interface for communicating data packets between the gateway device and local area network computers; a wide area network interface for communicating data packets between the gateway device and remote systems across the wide area network; and a core processing unit coupled to the local area network interface and the wide area network interface for routing data packets from the local area network computers to the remote systems across the wide area network, the core processing unit comprising a quality of service module configured to automatically assign a real-time quality of service priority to at least one data stream established between a local area network computer and a remote system based on a traffic type derived from packets in the data stream, the quality of service module assigning priority levels within a first range of values, the traffic type determined from an analysis of content of data packets included in with the data stream, the quality of service module further configured to determine a user configured quality of service priority for the data stream, the user configured quality of service priority overriding the real-time quality of service priority, the user configured quality of service priority lower than the first range of values.