Patent ID: 8477616

Claim:
A method for scheduling real time data across a network comprising the steps of: collecting information about network topology including path information and appointment information; using said path information to identify a set of possible paths across a network to satisfy a connection request; for each path from said identified set, examining appointment slots along said path to determine if at least one complete path can be traversed using available appointments having an acceptable cumulative phase-shift, wherein said phase-shift is a difference, measured across each switching and transmission element between communicating endpoints, in a dimension selected from one or more of: frequency, flow mass, time-frequency, flow type, packet type, and packet mass, and wherein said phase shift is not related to packet jitter; until either a complete path is determined or said identified set of possible paths is exhausted; publishing an itinerary to each path element if said at least one complete path has been determined; or rejecting said connection request if said identified set of possible paths has been exhausted without determining at least one complete path.