Traffic control method and system

A traffic control system comprising a traffic controller arranged to process traffic from a plurality of queue's to schedule the traffic on an outgoing link, the plurality of queues including at least one queue having an agreed bandwidth requirement and at least one queue having no agreed bandwidth requirement, the traffic controller being arranged to assign a weight to each queue having an agreed bandwidth requirement, the traffic controller determining the weight in dependence on the bandwidth requirement, to group the queues having no agreed bandwidth requirement into a group, Q*, and assign a weight to the group Q*, and to schedule the queues for transmission on the link in dependence on their assigned weight and on a last transmission time for the respective queue, wherein if a scheduled queue bas no traffic to transmit another queue is schedule, the group Q* being scheduled after the other queues.

A method according to claim. 17, wherein the maximum usable weight is set at U-STEP.

A computer-readable medium, on which is stored a compute program of instructions for a general purpose computer for scheduling traffic from a plurality of queues onto a link, at least one of the queues having an agreed bandwidth requirement and at least one of the queues having no agreed bandwidth requirement, comprising, in combination:

• means for enabling the computer to assign a weight to each queue having an agreed bandwidth requirement, the means determining the weight in dependence on the bandwidth requirement;
• means for enabling the computer to group the queues having no agreed bandwidth requirement into a group, Q*, and to assign a weight to the group;
• means for enabling the computer to schedule the queues for transmission on the link in dependence on their assigned weight and on a last transmission time for the respective queue, wherein if a scheduled queue has no traffic to transmit the means schedules another queue, the means scheduling the group Q* after the other queues.