The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jan. 13, 2004
Filed:
Jun. 30, 1999
Mark Robert Gibson, Herts, GB;
Nortel Networks Limited, St. Laurent, CA;
Abstract
On receipt of a request for a communication session over a communications network, such as an Internet Protocol communications network, a method of establishing a path for this session which provides a guaranteed quality of service is described. In a preferred example the communications network is an MPLS network and the method uses a modified version of the SIP messaging protocol. A number of possible paths for the communication session are identified and ranked according to factors such as traffic levels. Bandwidth along a chosen path is reserved and a messaging protocol such as CR-LDP used to establish this reserved path for the communication session. An advertising mechanism is used to provide entities in the network with information about topology and traffic levels. This enables the ranks to be determined effectively. The communications network has an overlay network of high capacity paths established on it. By arranging for communication sessions to preferably be established using these pre-determined high capacity paths the complexity of the topology information required is reduced.