Patent ID: 8885667

Claim:
A method comprising the steps of: identifying, in a set of customers of a packet communications network, a top usage subset, said top usage subset comprising those of said customers who are using more bandwidth of said packet communications network than other ones of said customers, said top usage subset including at least two of said customers; identifying, at an entry point of said communications network, routes of packets destined for said top usage subset, said routes comprising border gateway protocol routes, by: identifying a next hop for those of said packets destined for said top usage subset; based on said next hops, determining said routes of said packets destined for said top usage subset; and tagging said routes of said packets destined for said top usage subset with border gateway protocol community tags as tagged customer-specific routes with identical next hops; and discarding a predetermined percentage of said packets destined for said top usage subset, based on said border gateway protocol community tags, said predetermined percentage being determined in order to reduce bandwidth utilization of said packet communications network by a desired amount, said predetermined percentage being identical for all of said customers in said top usage subset.