Patent ID: 7768917

Claim:
A congestion control system for controlling network congestion within a service network, the service network formed on an Internet Protocol (IP) network carries out a plurality of communication services over the IP network, the service network having a two-layer structure, such that when user terminals that are connected to the IP network are divided by geographical area, subscriber accommodation nodes on the service network that accommodate the user terminals are present in geographical areas of the user terminals, and such that relay nodes of the service network relay information among the subscriber accommodation nodes, the congestion control system comprising: an edge router to route, as control messages, processing requests for selected communication services received from the user terminals to the subscriber accommodation nodes of the service network that accommodate the user terminals; and, a congestion control server to control congestion of the subscriber accommodation nodes and the relay nodes, wherein a selected subscriber accommodation node of the subscriber accommodation nodes is to detect when congestion occurs or is about to occur in the selected subscriber accommodation node due to a number of the control messages that have already been routed to the selected subscriber accommodation node, and is to in response transmit a notification to the congestion control server, wherein the congestion control server is to receive the notification from the selected subscriber accommodation node and in response is to transmit a congestion control message for regulating the congestion to the edge router, and wherein the edge router is to receive the congestion control message, and in response is to regulate routing of further of the control messages to the selected subscriber accommodation node to reduce or prevent the congestion within the selected subscriber accommodation node.