Abstract: An apparatus for and a method of dynamically prioritizing packets over a packet based network. Packets are dynamically prioritized on the basis of their ‘time to live’ in the network as they travel from one network entity to another. Packets are assigned a priority in accordance with how ‘old’ or ‘young’ they are. Packets with a relatively long time left to live are assigned lower priority then those with relatively little time left to live. A time to live (TTL) field is added to the packet as it travels from one network entity to another. The contents of the time to live (TTL) field represents how ‘young’ or ‘old’ the packet is and conveys the time left before the packet is no longer of any use. Each network entity that receives the packet with a TTL field, subtracts from it the time the packet spends passing through that entity. The field decreases as it hops from network entity to entity until it reaches its destination or is discarded.