Patent ID: 7606154

Claim:
A method comprising: storing, with a network device, a packet to one of a plurality of hold queues; monitoring, with the network device, a loading condition of a transmit queue by monitoring an amount of data residing within the transmit queue; dynamically determining, with the network device, a time epoch based on the loading condition by (i) computing a transmission time to deliver the amount of data in the transmit queue, (ii) computing a system load in units of time by comparing the transmission time to a constant lower limit and selectively setting the system load based on the comparison, and (iii) computing the time epoch based on the system load and a previous time epoch, wherein selectively setting the system load comprises setting the system load equal to the transmission time when the transmission time exceeds the constant lower limit; and at the dynamically determined time epoch, transferring, with the network device, the packet from the one of the plurality of hold queues to the transmit queue for delivery to a network device via a downstream channel.