Patent ID: 7006831

Claim:
A traffic control system for controlling traffic on a communications network, the system comprising: a network control center that receives traffic data associated with at least one element of the communications network, and relays the traffic data to a traffic engineering database; a traffic engineering database that stores the traffic data; and a traffic control application that, for each of the network elements: extracts traffic data corresponding to the network element from the traffic engineering database; determines a traffic control measure to be imposed in a geographic location associated with the network element, based upon the traffic data corresponding to the network element wherein the traffic control measure includes: altering a cost of placing calls from communications devices associated with a subscriber identifier to be controlled and the geographic location; and preventing each of the communications devices from exceeding maximums for at least one of a number of calls placed or a duration of calls placed; and retrieves a list containing each communications device associated with a subscriber identifier to be controlled and the geographic location, wherein each subscriber identifier associated with a communications device indicates a degree of control the traffic control measure exerts on that communications device.