Patent ID: 8051171

Claim:
An apparatus, comprising: a control server, with one or more electronic components, wherein the control server comprises a call controller of a cellular communication network configured to manage a plurality of resource servers of the cellular communication network that are allocated to handle a call load for the cellular communication network, wherein the control server is configured to receive from a first resource server, of the plurality of resource servers, one or more instances of a first status message that comprises a first indicator of a availability of the first resource server, wherein the control server is configured to receive from a second resource server, of the plurality of resource servers, one or more instances of a second status message that comprises a second indicator of a availability of the second resource server; wherein the control server comprises a predetermined ranked list of operational mode indicators that correspond to a respective plurality of call handling operational modes for the plurality of resource servers, wherein the first and second indicators are selected from the predetermined ranked list of operational mode indicators; wherein the plurality of call handling operational modes are separated by resource thresholds of the resource server from which the status message is sent; wherein the control server comprises a dynamic ranked list of the plurality of resource servers and is configured to employ the dynamic ranked list to distribute the call load among the plurality of resource servers to promote a selected balance of the call load; wherein the control server is configured to employ a comparison of the most recently received first indicator with the most recently received second indicator to update the dynamic ranked list and promote the selected balance of the call load.