According to certain embodiments, a method is provided by a distribution node for location aware scheduling. The method includes determining information about a condition associated with a packet. At least one Quality of Service, QoS, parameter is adjusted based on the information about the condition associated with the packet. The at least one QoS parameter is used to schedule the packet for transmission to a receiver based on the at least one adjusted QoS parameter.

There is provided a method for handling packets in a network. The method is performed by a first entity. The method is performed in response to receipt of a first packet, from a first network slice in the network, to be scheduled for a first service. A first priority value is assigned to the first packet by a provider of the first service. The method comprises setting (100) a second priority value for the first packet based on a comparison of the first priority value with at least one reference priority value. The second priority value is indicative of a priority with which the first packet is to be scheduled relative to at least one other packet.

There is provided a method for handling packets in a network. The method is performed by a first entity. The method is performed in response to receipt of a first packet, from a first network slice in the network, to be scheduled for a first service. A first priority value is assigned to the first packet by a provider of the first service. The method comprises setting (100) a second priority value for the first packet based on a comparison of the first priority value with at least one reference priority value. The second priority value is indicative of a priority with which the first packet is to be scheduled relative to at least one other packet.

A time-division multiplexing (TDM) scheduler determines a service order for serving N packet transmission requesters. The TDM scheduler includes: N current count value generators configured to serve the N packet transmission requesters respectively, and generate N current count values according to parameters of the N packet transmission requesters, a previous scheduling result generated by the EDD scheduler previously, and a predetermined counting rule; and an earliest due date (EDD) scheduler configured to generate a current scheduling result for determining the service order according to the N current count values and a predetermined urgency decision rule, wherein an extremum of the N current count values relates to one of the N packet transmission requesters, and the EDD scheduler selects this requester as the one to be served preferentially.

A time-division multiplexing (TDM) scheduler determines a service order for serving N packet transmission requesters. The TDM scheduler includes: N current count value generators configured to serve the N packet transmission requesters respectively, and generate N current count values according to parameters of the N packet transmission requesters, a previous scheduling result generated by the EDD scheduler previously, and a predetermined counting rule; and an earliest due date (EDD) scheduler configured to generate a current scheduling result for determining the service order according to the N current count values and a predetermined urgency decision rule, wherein an extremum of the N current count values relates to one of the N packet transmission requesters, and the EDD scheduler selects this requester as the one to be served preferentially.

Various communication systems may benefit from enhanced cell capacity. For example, certain embodiments may benefit from improved packet capacity by managing transmissions in a cell. A method, in certain embodiments, may include determining at a network node whether a packet is of a service type. The service type may indicate that the packet is discardable. The method may also include calculating at the network node a probability factor or a scheduling adjustment factor for transmission of the packet, when it is determined that the packet is of the service type. In addition, the method may include determining at the network node whether to transmit the packet to a user equipment based on the probability factor, or adjusting at the network node a scheduler metric based on the scheduling adjustment factor.

Methods and systems are provided for performing lossy dropping and ECN marking in a flow-based network. The system can maintain state information of individual packet flows, which can be set up or released dynamically based on injected data. Each flow can be provided with a flow-specific input queue upon arriving at a switch. Packets of a respective flow are acknowledged after reaching the egress point of the network, and the acknowledgement packets are sent back to the ingress point of the flow along the same data path. As a result, each switch can obtain state information of each flow and perform per-flow packet dropping and ECN marking.

A method for dividing communication services in smart substation into different priorities, the method including: determining the priority of a message to be sent according to the service type and its priority definition; the communication services includes trip message, state change message, sampled value message, device status message, time synchronization message, and file transfer message; the corresponding priority is respectively defined as 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 1; and filling the user priority field of IEEE802.1Q label in a message header with a binary value corresponding to its priority.

A method for dividing communication services in smart substation into different priorities, the method including: determining the priority of a message to be sent according to the service type and its priority definition; the communication services includes trip message, state change message, sampled value message, device status message, time synchronization message, and file transfer message; the corresponding priority is respectively defined as 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 1; and filling the user priority field of IEEE802.1Q label in a message header with a binary value corresponding to its priority.

Provided are methods and apparatuses for packet scheduling for software-defined networking in an edge computing environment. A packet scheduling method according to an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure comprises: receiving packets arriving at a queue connected to a switch in a software-defined network in an edge computing environment; moving the packets in the queue forward one position based on the order of arrival each time a packet is served by the switch; and if a new packet enters the switch while the buffer in the queue is full, pushing out the packet at the front and putting the new packet at the end of the queue.