Patent ID: 8089985

Claim:
A method of allocating an amount of available bandwidth among a plurality of users of a computer network, each user having a maximum allocation of bandwidth, the method comprising: accessing tier information of a plurality of tiers in which users having a same maximum allocation are grouped into a same tier, the tier information including a breakpoint value of each tier; and allocating the available bandwidth by (1) allocating the respective maximum allocations to the users in each lower tier, each lower tier having a breakpoint value less than or equal to the amount of available bandwidth, and (2) allocating a minimum allocation of bandwidth to each user in a higher tier, each higher tier having a breakpoint value greater than the amount of available bandwidth, the minimum allocation of bandwidth being at least the maximum allocation of bandwidth of the users in the lower tier that has the highest breakpoint value among the breakpoint values of each lower tier, the breakpoint value of a lowest tier being a function of a product of the lowest maximum allocation and a total number of users in the plurality of users, and the breakpoint value of at least one higher tier being a function of the sum of (1) the breakpoint value of a lower tier and (2) the product of (a) a number of users in tiers corresponding to maximum allocations greater than a lower maximum allocation associated with the lower tier and (b) a difference between a higher maximum allocation associated with the at least one higher tier and the lower maximum allocation associated with the lower tier.