Nortel Networks Corporation

Mingxing Li

Osama S Aboul-Magd

Cristian Constantinof

Vladimir V Mikhailov

James J Yan

Brian J N Vaughan

A method and apparatus for reduction of call setup rate in an ATM network are described. The method and apparatus are particularly useful in ATM networks used for the transfer of bearer traffic between telephone switching offices. The method involves caching a number of switched virtual circuits (SVCs) between edge interfaces to the ATM network. A cache connection is an emulated circuit between two edge interfaces that is available and idle. The apparatus provides a central policy manager which computes and distributes cache policies to cache managers located in the edge interfaces. The cache managers manage pools of cached SVCs established between two edge interfaces. The method and apparatus reduces the number of connection setup requests sent to the ATM switches. The advantage is the ability to use ATM switches which have slow connection setup rates to provide commercially acceptable telephone services in an efficient manner. The method can also be used with fast ATM switches when they become available to balance the use of bandwidth and switch resources to reduce overall cost.

Method and apparatus for reduction of call setup rate in an ATM network

A dynamic admission control(AC) mechanism for accepting traffic service requests to a carrier IP network based on an iterative measurement method, is disclosed. For each service offered, a network planner assigns a certain amount of resources. A QoS manager keeps track of the amount of unused resources for each particular service. The amount of unused resources are estimated using actual measurements of load levels on various links of the network. Each router monitors the loading level on each of its outgoing interfaces. Those measurements are then transferred to the QoS manager upon request, or periodically at time intervals &ldquo;T&rdquo;.

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Kanata, Canada

Mingxing Li