Patent ID: 8325737

Claim:
A method of setting up a bidirectional label switched path (LSP) within a network, comprising: setting up a bidirectional label switched path with asymmetric bandwidth allocation in which the LSP is from an ingress label edge router (LER), via at least one label switching router (LSR), to an egress label edge router; passing a path message from the ingress LER to the egress LER along the LSP to be set up, in which the path message comprises a first parameter indicative of the bandwidth to be allocated to the LSP in a downstream direction from the ingress LER to the egress LER and a second parameter indicative of the bandwidth to be allocated to the LSP in an upstream direction from the egress LER to the ingress LER; transmitting a reservation message from the egress LER to the ingress LER along the LSP to be set up in response to the path message being received by the egress LER wherein during each hop from one router to the next, the reservation message comprises a downstream label indicative of the label to be applied by a router to which the reservation message is being transmitted on that hop to packets travelling through the LSP in the downstream direction.