a packet and forwarding the packet to its next hop based on a policy decision the next hop as determined by the network element could be a an interface on the router b an adjacent router or c an mpls u201c policy u201d virtual network it should also be noted that the invention is not limited to the policy decision specified above of matching the source address to an address prefix allocated to a service provider the policy decision could be without limitation a decision based on the protocol utilized the incoming interfaces utilized a type of service u201c tos u201d value other ip header information etc such an extension would be readily contemplated by one of ordinary skill in the art given the above description the performance penalty of adding such policy decisions to the ingress network router preferably should be minimal the required capability should not have to degrade the performance of the router there are a number of ways of arranging the network architecture to implement the features described above fig5 for example shows an advantageous implementation of the above concepts the access network comprises a plurality of what are referred to as u201c aggregation nodes u201d each aggregation node 560 comprises one or more broadband headends connected to a number of network access devices that ensure that traffic from subscribers goes through a policy filtering function at a policy provider edge router e g pf pe router 510 the pf pe router 510 is connected to an intra regional.