Method and apparatus for multicast and unicast scheduling

In a method and system for scheduling unicast and multicast data packets associated a weight value reflecting the urgency of each queue in a set of available input nodes to transmit its queued cells is computed. If the highest weight queue in each input node is unicast, a request containing the weight of the queue is sent to a single output node relating to the highest weight queue. Otherwise, a request containing the weight of the queue is sent to one or more output nodes relating to the multicast queue. A grant is sent to the highest weight input node sending a request for a specific output node. Input nodes relating to unicast queues are removed from consideration in successive iterations. Input nodes relating to multicast queues may compete in successive iterations but only from the same multicast queue.