Patent ID: 7602809

Claim:
A method in a packet switched network for reducing transmission time for data packets sent from a transmitting router to a receiving router through at least one intermediate router, wherein the data packets are of different lengths and different priorities, the method comprising the steps of: determining by the transmitting router that a first data packet is a lengthy low priority data packet; fragmenting the first data packet at the transmitting router into a plurality of fragments while keeping other data packets unfragmented, each of the fragments including an identifier of the first data packet; transmitting the unfragmented data packets and the fragments of the first data packet toward the receiving router; at each intermediate router, forwarding each received unfragmented data packet and each received fragment of the first data packet toward the receiving router, wherein the fragments are forwarded without regard to the order of fragments or whether all fragments belonging to the first data packet have reached the intermediate router; and defragmenting the fragments into the first data packet at the receiving router.