Patent ID: 7688725

Claim:
A content-aware congested control system for multiple protocol label switching (MPLS) routers, said system comprising: a multiple protocol label switching (MPLS) router for encapsulating a regular internet protocol (IP) packet with a multiple label switching (MPLS) header and wherein the function of removing labels is executed at said egress edge router; means for changing an incoming label to an outgoing label according to a preconfigured switch table and removing labels at an edge of a network; means for classifying and marking internet protocol (IP) packets based on the actual content of a payload and for making forwarding decisions during periods of network congestion; in which said means for prioritizing internet protocol (IP) packets includes means for discarding packets with substantially less important content and for enabling graceful degradation of quality; in which said means for discarding packets with less important content incorporates a wavelet based compression technique; in which a marking scheme for identifying high priority and low priority multi-media packets is indefinite of differentiated services (DiffServ) marking and relying solely on multiple protocol label switching (MPLS); in which said content-aware congestion control system is implemented in an ingress mode, a switch mode and an egress mode; in which said ingress mode comprises a marker or content aware routing module, a classifier or Quality of service (QoS) module and the multiple protocol label switching module; and in which said content aware routing module includes means for analyzing all incoming packets from the interface for packet payload from the information in the packet header and means for marking packets on the basis of a pre-determined policy.