Systems and methods utilizing a packet gate to improve communication performance with respect to a resource shared for data communication are disclosed. In embodiments, a packet gate is utilized with respect to a shared resource to improve the effective throughput and reduce packet losses with respect to a plurality of data flows sharing the resource. In operation of embodiments, data packets are dissembled into chunks and encoded, such as using forward error correction, for transmission through a switching fabric, wherein at the egress of the switching fabric the packet gate tracks the number of chunks of a packet that has been received and when a sufficient number of chunks are received drops all subsequent chunks of that packet. The admitted encoded chunks are passed through the shared resource, wherein the chunks are decoded and reassembled into the packet at the output of the shared resource of embodiments.