Patent ID: 7656880

Claim:
A method of communicating data using a fixed connection, the method comprising: based on at least two service data units (SDUs), associating a respective priority and a channel identifier with each of the at least two SDUs; iteratively: selecting one of the at least two SDUs based on the respective priorities associated with each of the at least two SDUs to provide a selected SDU, and, forming at least one data packet configured to be transmitted over an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network, the at least one data packet including: data associated with the selected SDU, the channel identifier associated with the selected SDU, and, control data associated with the selected SDU, and the control data including a user-to-user field for storing a value representative of the priority associated with the selected SDU in a trailer; and, transmitting the formed at least one data packet using the fixed connection.