Patent ID: 7542417

Claim:
Method of controlling data packet traffic at input of a network, the traffic comprising N streams and/or sub-streams which are each associated with a priority level, N≧2, each of the packets being marked with the priority level associated with the stream or sub-stream to which said packet belongs, wherein the method comprises: a step of arrival of a packet and obtaining its priority level, a step of assigning tokens to said packet, if tokens are available for said packet, implementing a token bucket mechanism with N operating levels with N token buffers, each comprising a number of available tokens, the tokens of each of the N token buffers being used to process one of the N priority levels, wherein the tokens are assigned or not assigned to said packet depending on the tokens available at least in the token buffer used to process the priority level of said packet, and wherein each of the N operating levels is managed by a regulator b i (r i , bm i ), i ∈{1 to N}, with: r i a nominal bit rate of the regulator; bm i a maximum size of the token buffer of the regulator; b i (t) an instantaneous value of the filling of the token buffer of the regulator; a step of accepting said packet in a buffer forming a means for managing a queue, if the packet has been assigned tokens, a step of rejecting said packet, if it has not been assigned tokens.