Abstract: A bandwidth allocation system, device, and method for assigning a drop precedence value to each of a plurality of packets associated with a traffic stream having a target rate and a measured rate greater than the target rate assigns a drop precedence value to each of a plurality of packets associated with the traffic stream such that, of all packets assigned either a first drop precedence value or a second drop precedence value higher than the first drop precedence value, substantially (1−q) of the packets are assigned the first drop precedence value and substantially (q) of the packets are assigned the second drop precedence value, where q is equal to the ratio of a minimum target rate from among a plurality of traffic streams to the target rate of the traffic stream. Such a packet marking scheme may be used in a differentiate services communication system for proportionally distributing excess bandwidth between multiple traffic streams.

Abstract: A traffic conditioner is disclosed for use in a source edge device or ingress node in a carrier network. The carrier network includes: a plurality of virtual private networks, each virtual private network comprising a plurality of edge devices; and at least one core device for routing data between edge devices within the virtual private networks. Each plurality of edge devices includes: at least one source edge device; and at least one destination edge device or egress node associated with each source edge device. The carrier network also includes edge device communication means for determining the minimum aggregateRTT (minRTT) for the carrier network.