Patent ID: 8305916

Claim:
A method of classifying data packets comprising: identifying, by a wireless access node, a flow of data packets based on source and destination addresses of the data packets, the wireless access node comprising a plurality of flows of data packets; classifying, by the wireless access node, data packets of the identified flow of data packets as requiring a predetermined quality of service, comprising; determining if the identified flow of data packets comprise an inter-arrival time less than a first inter-arrival threshold; wherein if the wireless access node classifies the data packets of the identified flow of data packets as requiring the predetermined quality of service, then selecting, by the wireless access node, at least one of a plurality of node interfaces based on the classification of the data packets of the identified flow of data packets, and performance characteristics of the node interfaces, and forwarding, by the wireless access node, the classified data packets over the at least one selected node interface.