Abstract: An active queue management (AQM) process for network communications equipment. The AQM process is rate based and involves applying at a rate congestion notification to communications packets in a queue of a link, and adjusting the rate of congestion notification on the basis of the difference between an arrival rate for the packets and a target capacity of the link. Network communications equipment includes a switch component for switching communications packets between input ports and output ports, packet queues for at least the output ports, and an active queue manager for applying congestion notification to communications packets in the queues for the output ports. The congestion notification is applied at respective rates for the queues, and the rates of congestion notification adjusted on the basis of the respective arrival rates of the packets for the queues of the output ports. The AQM process can be applied to a class based DiffServ architecture.