Patent ID: 7864684

Claim:
A bucket method for delivering packets from a first node to a second node in a packet switched network, comprising the steps of: receiving at the first node at least one transmission comprising best effort packets and at least one transmission comprising real-time packets; transmitting the received packets to the second node and increasing a bucket counter for a bucket in the first node by delivering said packets to the bucket, which bucket has a bucket leak rate that is equal to or larger than a byte transmitting ratio of the real-time packets; wherein: a bucket size for the best-effort packets in said bucket is set to a first size; a bucket size for real-time packets in said bucket is set to a second size that is larger than the first bucket size to allow additional capacity solely for the real-time packets to be used in case of a burst of subsequent real-time packets; the real-time packets are transmitted to the second node upon arrival at the first node, provided that the bucket counter indicates that the second bucket size is not overflowed; and, the best-effort packets are scheduled to be transmitted to the second node depending on the bucket leak rate and rescheduled after a failed delivery to the bucket due to the risk of overflowing the first bucket size in said bucket to allow a full capacity to be allocated for transmitting the real-time packets if needed while the best-effort packets are discharged or buffered for a later delivery to the bucket.