Patent ID: 8320930

Claim:
A communication station for providing communications with subscriber stations in a communication network, comprising: a modem arranged for transmitting and receiving wireless signals for communicating packets with the subscriber stations; and a control and management module coupled to the modem and arranged for determining whether a demand for communicating packets with the subscriber stations exceeds a capacity of the wireless signals, and selectively discarding some of the packets when the demand for communicating packets with the subscriber stations exceeds the capacity of the wireless signals, wherein selectively discarding some of the packets comprises selecting packets based on the impact on quality metrics of the communications with the subscriber stations, the control and management module comprising: a policy parameters module arranged for receiving policy parameters that define operational requirements for the communication network; a control set points module in communication with the policy parameters module and arranged for receiving the policy parameters from the policy parameters module and for generating parameter target values for assessing the capacity of the wireless signals; an environment parameters module arranged for receiving environment parameters that represent real-time information describing operating conditions of the communication network; and a real-time profile module in communication with the environment parameters module and arranged for receiving the environment parameters from the environment parameters module and for generating a representation of current operating conditions of the communication network that represents current demand for communicating packets with the subscriber stations.