Available bit rate scheduler

An available bit rate scheduling method and apparatus for asynchronous transfer mode communication of a plurality of cells over a network characterized by a system clock frequency f and an allowed cell rate ACR. Each cell belongs to an assigned virtual circuit communication channel which is defined by a set of negotiated traffic parameters. The invention partitions the ACR's of the virtual circuits into a smaller subset of profiles/sub-profiles and conducts a deterministic search to service them. The scheduler incorporates a profile generator for iteratively generating a number p of the profiles by (i) outputting a k*modulo 2ith one of the profiles during each kth iteration of the profile generator, where 1