Systems and methods for prioritization of data for intelligent discard in a communication network

A packet management system in a communication network having a plurality of subscriber stations and supporting a plurality of communication services that have different bandwidth and latency requirements, the system comprising:

• a prioritization module that prioritizes each one of a plurality of packets into a plurality of discard priority levels, the prioritization being based on an estimated quality degradation level for an associated one of the plurality of communication services that would result from a discard of the packet, and which assigns each prioritized packet into one of at least one scheduler queue;
• and
• a scheduler module configured to
• determine whether a required physical transmission resource value for supporting all currently operating communication services in their current operating states has increased to be greater than a total physical transmission resources value,
• select, in the event that the required physical transmission resource value for supporting all currently operating communication services in their current operating states has increased to be greater than the total physical transmission resources value, all packets prioritized to a selected one of the plurality of discard priority levels and associated with one or more of the currently operating communication services, wherein the selection is conducted such that an estimated quality degradation level for each of the one or more of the currently operating communication services resulting from a discard of all selected packets does not exceed a maximum quality degradation threshold, and
• discard the selected packets prior to a time for their transmission to one or more of the plurality of subscriber stations.