Patent ID: 8531961

Claim:
A method for managing packet discard responsive to conditions in a communication network having a plurality of subscriber stations and a plurality of communication services with different bandwidth and latency requirements, the system comprising: categorizing a plurality of packets to be transmitted into discard levels according to an estimated degradation level that discarding the packet will impose on the quality of experience of an associated communication service; determining if a required physical transmission resources estimate to support all currently operating communication services in their current states has increased to be greater than a total physical transmission resources value; determining, in the case that the total physical transmission resources value is less than the required physical transmission resources estimate to support all currently operating communication services in their current states, whether the total physical transmission resources are sufficient to support all currently operating communication services with a subset of the currently operating communication services operating in a degraded state through selective discarding of packets associated with the subset of the currently operating communication services; degrading, in the case that the total physical transmission resources value is sufficient to support all currently operating communication services with the subset of the currently operating communication services operating in a degraded state, the communication services in the subset of the currently operating communication services by selectively discarding packets associated with the subset of the currently operating communication services; and suspending, in the case that the total physical transmission resources value is not sufficient to support all currently operating communication services with the subset of the currently operating communication services operating in a degraded state, one or more of the currently operating communication services.