Abstract: In the routing of data traffic to a common destination egress queue from a plurality of customer subscribers each contracting for respective allocations of bandwidth of data flow, a technique and system for fairly sharing any underutilized excess bandwidth and for data dropping amongst over-subscribers, while guaranteeing each subscriber its contracted-for bandwidth, and further enabling billing over-subscribers for their share of received excess bandwidth—all while maintaining the granularity of the contracted traffic flow.

Abstract: A configurable adaptive variable length data packet transmission output scheduler for enabling substantially simultaneous transmission on a common transmission link, as of fiber optics, of differentiated services for various different traffic types, executing different QOS algorithms while co-existing in a converged network environment, with simultaneous preserving of the different service characteristics for real-time or high-priority traffic and providing differentiated bandwidth allocation while achieving maximal link utilization—all through a fine and balanced control as to which type of traffic is transmitted on the link for a given duration, and how much of that traffic is transmitted on the link.