The scope of this document is to define the use of the priority field in IEEE 802.1Q Ethernet packets to allow Internet Protocols (IP) on Ethernet networks to concurrently support differing Quality of Service (QoS) implementations. This document recognizes three classes of QoS: best effort, priority routing (prioritized), and managed connections (parameterized) and maps priorities to these classes such that all three classes can coexist on an IP Ethernet network. This standard does not specify how to implement QoS policies in these classes.

This standard also maps legacy Ethernet (non 802.1Q) packets to the lowest priority in 802.1Q