Patent ID: 7489634

Claim:
A method for controlling traffic flow in a telecommunication network including a plurality of network nodes, each network node having a temporary different capacity limitation for handling signalling multimedia sessions over data networks, the method comprising the steps of: (a) negotiating between two network nodes whether a mechanism exist in both nodes for controlling the traffic flow between said nodes in both directions, from a traffic sender node to a traffic receiver node; (b) determining the capacity limitation of at least one traffic receiver node; and (c) accommodating the traffic load between the traffic sender node and the traffic receiver node to the capacity limitation of the traffic receiver node; (d) negotiating between said two network nodes whether a capacity reference exchange (CRE) mechanism exist in both nodes for establishing maximum reference limits for the traffic flow between them in both directions, said negotiation being initiated at any one of said nodes; (e) using a CRE mechanism for establishing a maximum reference limit for the traffic flow between said nodes in at least one direction of the traffic flow, including the following steps: (e1) determining at each node the maximum traffic load that said node supports for sending to, or receiving from, the other node in said direction of the traffic flow; and (e2) both nodes exchanging their respective capacity references (Capacity-profile) in said direction of the traffic flow, said references including when applicable the maximum traffic load in the incoming or outgoing direction, and the units in which traffic is measured; wherein the mechanism is a capacity adjustment indication CAI mechanism and the negotiation in the above step a) includes the steps of: (a1) indicating from a requester to a requested node of said network nodes at least one traffic flow direction for which the capacity adjustment indication mechanism is supported in the requester node; (a2) answering from the requested to the requester node whether the CAI mechanism for said traffic flow direction is also supported in the requested node; and (a3) marking at the requester and requested nodes any traffic flow direction for which a CAI mechanism is supported in both nodes.