Patent ID: 7995597

Claim:
A system for scheduling data for transmission in a communication network, the communication network having a plurality of children, the system comprising: a credit distributor operating to: grant credits to at least one of eligible children and children having a negative credit count, each credit redeemable for an amount of data transmission; affect fairness between children with ratios of granted credits; maintain a credit balance representing a total amount of undistributed credits available; deduct the granted credits from the credit balance; strip all positive credits from a previously eligible and enabled child upon the child becoming at least one of disabled and ineligible; and add the stripped credits to the credit balance for redistribution; and a transmit selector communicatively coupled to the credit distributor, the transmit selector operating to: select at least one eligible and enabled child for dequeuing; bias selection of the at least one eligible and enabled child to an eligible and enabled child with positive credits; and add credits to the credit balance corresponding to an amount of data selected for dequeuing.