Patent ID: 7860002

Claim:
A method for priority-based admission control in a network, the method comprising: receiving an admission request for transmitting an information flow to a network through a communication channel having a channel data rate range; obtaining a priority of the information flow, wherein the priority of the information flow is one of a plurality of priorities of information flow; dividing up the channel data rate range into a plurality of non-overlapping regions; determining an admissible region within a range of a channel data rate of the communication channel in response to the priority of the information flow, wherein the admissible region is one of a plurality of admissible regions within the channel data rate range that correspond to different ones of the plurality of priorities of information flow, respectively, and each of the plurality of admissible regions is useable for transmitting information flow with a respective one of the plurality of priorities; determining an available channel data rate of the communication channel for receiving the information flow by the network; and granting the admission request for the information flow after determining that the available channel data rate of the communication channel is within the admissible region of the channel data rate range, wherein determining an admissible region within the channel data rate range comprises selecting a group of the non-overlapping regions as the admissible region.