Patent ID: 8472326

Claim:
A method for monitoring and optimizing interlayer network performance comprising: receiving a data packet that includes network performance information data indicative of network transmission characteristics at a data link layer (Layer 2) of a network device; determining at the data link layer of the network device whether there is degradation in transmission performance over at least one link in the network using the network performance information data; responsive to a determination at the data link layer of the network device that there is degradation in transmission performance over at least one link in the network, communicating from data link layer of the network device to a second layer of the network device information regarding the degradation in transmission performance associated with the at least one link in the network; in response to the second layer of the network device receiving said information regarding the degradation in transmission performance associated with the at least one link in the network from the data link layer of the device, optimizing, at the second layer of the network device, network performance to overcome the degradation in the transmission performance associated with the at least one link in the network; and concatenating indicia of a bandwidth of data packets including real-time content and total data packets into said data packet.