Patent ID: 7965635

Claim:
A method of providing network access, comprising: scheduling on a per class basis, across two or more downstream nodes, use of a provider equipment port for sending network traffic downstream of the provider equipment and via the two or more downstream nodes, where one or more class aggregates two or more subscriber hosts traffic that belong to the same class, where at least one of the one or more subscriber hosts includes traffic belong to two or more classes; and limiting the respective network traffic sent from the provider equipment to each of at least a subset of the two or more downstream nodes, on a per downstream node basis, to a corresponding maximum traffic rate, where the corresponding maximum traffic rate is determined at least in part by a capacity of a downstream communication path associated with the downstream node in order to not overwhelm the capacity of the communication path associated with the downstream node; wherein scheduling on a per class basis includes determining a next subscriber queue within a class which queue is not currently in a hold status as a result of said rate limiting for sending to the downstream nodes.