Methods (400, 500) and corresponding systems (100, 200, 300) for managing a packet (318) for transmission include obtaining a quality of service (QoS) parameter value for a data stream (404), and determining one or more QoS statistics for previously transmitted data (406). Thereafter, a packet is selected from the data stream (408), and scheduling information is estimated for the packet (410) based upon the QoS statistics and the QoS parameter value. The scheduling information is assigned (414) to the packet. A transmission time window of a transmission buffer is determined (506). If the scheduling information assigned to the packet falls within the transmission time window (508), the packet is queued for transmission in the transmission buffer. The labeled packet can be arranged among one or more queued packets in response to comparing scheduling information of the labeled packet and the queued packets.