Apparatus and method for optimizing max-min fair rate control in ABR sessuibs

Fairness is provided among network sessions contending lor available bit rate (ABR) service in an asynchronous transfer mode network by determining congestion information on a per port basis. ABR cells are monitored to determine which rate information per outgoing port based on ABR cells leaving a switch. Using the ABR per port rate, the available capacity, and the input rate to output queues, a link congestion parameter (LCP) is determined. Resource Management (RM) cells traveling through the switch are monitored to determine whether the new LCP is lower than the explicit rate (ER) field in RM cell. If the new LCP is lower, the new LCP is stuffed into the RM cell. When the sender receives the LCP value, the sender output rate is adjusted based on the LCP. Because LCP is determined based on per port traffic flow, fairness is provided among session competing for available ABR capacity