Patent ID: 7965723

Claim:
A method for data traffic smoothing comprising: buffering at least one incoming data packet to be forwarded, the at least one data packet having a first length; predicting a second length of the at least one data packet, the second length comprising the first length of the at least one data packet and management information to be added during a protocol conversion; and forwarding the at least one data packet based on a queue method such that the at least one data packet is forwarded as a function of the predicted second length, the queue method for forwarding the at least one data packet being a token bucket method, the token bucket method comprising: assigning tokens from a bucket to a data packet based on the second length of the at least one data packet: if a residual content of tokens from the bucket is less than the tokens needed for filling the at least one data packet, not sending the at least one data packet until additional tokens are provided to the bucket for filling the at least one data packer; and if the residual content of tokens from the bucket is sufficient to fill the at least one data packet, sending the at least one data packet and removing the assigned tokens from the bucket; and wherein the protocol conversion occurs after forwarding the at least one data packet.