Patent ID: 7426184

Claim:
A method for scheduling link bandwidth between different packet-switched data flows comprising: classifying digital data packets of fixed or variable length into one of at least two classes of service wherein said classes of service represent a range of service levels between “real-time” and “best-effort” and each class of service is represented by at least one parallel FIFO (first-in-first-out) queue; further classifying packets from at least one class of service into one of at least two internal subgroups within the at least one class of service; and scheduling available bandwidth of transmission links between class-of-service specific FIFO queues using a bandwidth scheduling discipline that ensures instantaneous availability of unutilized portions of bandwidth from all service classes to all effort-based service classes in a specific, consistent, configurable, ratio by assigning a priority value to a packet based on a combination of the packet's class of service and the subgroup information of the packet or at least one packet immediately preceding or following said packet.