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Abstract

A network switch having switch ports for full-duplex communication of data packets with respective network nodes according to IEEE 802.3 protocol dynamically allocates bandwidth between the switch ports based upon detected activity from the network nodes. The network switch generates an assigned bandwidth value for each active switch port based upon the switch capacity and the number of active switch ports. Each active switch port forwards the assigned bandwidth value to the corresponding network node as an IEEE 802.3x[2] compliant media access control (MAC) control frame, enabling the corresponding network node to calculate its programmed interpacket gap interval following a packet transmission based upon the size of the transmitted packet and the assigned bandwidth. Each active switch port also calculates the programmed interpacket gap to determine if reception of another data packet has begun by the end of the programmed interpacket gap interval. If no data packet is received by the corresponding port after the programmed interpacket gap interval, the network switch considers that switch port as non-active, recalculates, and reassigns the unused bandwidth to the remaining active ports. The dynamic bandwidth allocation by the network switch enables the input buffer size to be optimized without requiring an excessive switch bandwidth.

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