Providing packet-based service differentiation on packet-based networks involves first determining information associated with packets as a basis for inferring connection characteristics associated with the respective packet, as the packets pass though a particular network node. Statistical measures based on numerical values of, for example, Round Trip Time (RTT), is used to characterize connections as being, in this case "long" or "short". "Long" connections are given a higher priority than "short" connections. Accordingly, the assigned priority associated with particular packets can be used to adjust drop probabilities for those packets.