A method and apparatus for assigning nodes to CMTS cards in a communication system. In order to avoid bottlenecks and to efficiently use resources of the cards in a hybrid fiber-coax architecture, the nodes are assigned to the cards using linear programming techniques so as to distribute the traffic load and minimize the unused capacity of each card. The number of households, nodes and cards are determined and used to establish a model which is then implemented using linear programming techniques to determine an optimal solution.