Patent ID: 9722935
Date: 2017-08-01
CPC Classifications: H04L,H04W

Claim:
1. A communications controller comprising: a flow manager in a control plane, the flow manager configured to classify a packet flow serviced by a plurality of transmission points (TPs) as one of a plurality of slices in accordance with at least one of a nature of the packet flow, a load status of each of the plurality of slices, and feedback information provided by the plurality of TPs, the feedback information indicating a capacity and an average served rate of each of the plurality of TPs, the flow manager further configured to alter a classification of the packet flow in accordance with the load status of each of the plurality of slices and in accordance with the feedback information provided by the plurality of TPs; a memory in a data plane operatively coupled to the flow manager, the memory configured to store a packet of the packet flow in one of a plurality of packet queues in accordance with the classification of the packet flow; and a scheduler in the control plane operatively coupled to the flow manager and to the memory, the scheduler configured to determine decision metric values associated with each of the plurality of TPs according to the capacity and the average served rate of each of the plurality of TPs, the scheduler further configured to select one or more selected TPs from the plurality of TPs with a greater decision metric value than others of the plurality of TPs, the one or more selected TPs further selected in accordance with a destination of the packet, the scheduler further configured to allocate resources for the plurality of slices, the resources used by the one or more selected TPs to transfer the packet to the destination, the resources including time domain and frequency domain resources, the scheduler further configured to schedule a transfer of the packet from the one of the plurality of packet queues to the one or more selected TPs over the data plane.