Patent ID: 7616572

Claim:
An apparatus, comprising: a first node; a second node coupled to the first node via a first network path; a first processor associated with the first node, the first processor configured to: apply one of a plurality of call admission policies associated with one of a plurality of severity levels, and selectively transmit packets of data to the second node based on a type of data within each packet in accordance with the one of the plurality of call admission policies; and a second processor associated with the second node and configured to: receive a packet of data from the first processor, the packet of data including a condition of the first network path, calculate a different severity level for the first network path based on the condition of the network path, and transmit the different severity level to the first processor, wherein the first processor is further configured to replace the one of the plurality of admission policies with a different one of the plurality of admission policies based on the different severity level.