Patent ID: 7821929

Claim:
A method for providing access communications between a customer premise and a service edge, the method comprising: receiving, at a processor, a first communication from a customer premise equipment; encapsulating the first communication by applying an encapsulation structure to a frame of the first communication to yield an encapsulated communication, the encapsulation structure comprising a discard eligibility indicator and a carrier tag value, where the carrier tag value determines how the frame of the first communication is sent to the service edge; determining whether the first communication exceeds a data rate threshold, the determining step including, measuring a data rate of a second communication, and determining whether combined data rates of the first communication and the second communication exceed a combined data rate threshold; responsive to the determining whether the first communication exceeds a data rate threshold, setting a value of the discard eligibility indicator; and sending the encapsulated communication to the service edge based on the carrier tag value.