Patent ID: 7463584

Claim:
A method for providing a virtual private communication network to transport customer data between a set of customer devices coupled to an Internet Protocol (IP) provider network, the method comprising: advertising a committed information rate to a provider tandem of the virtual private communication network; determining, at the provider tandem, whether sufficient network resources exist to successfully transport to a destination customer device all offered data from the set of customer devices at the advertised committed information rate; and adding a customer site to the virtual private network using a process comprising: linking the added customer device to a provider edge device; provisioning the virtual private network to: identify the added customer device as a device within the virtual private network; establish a committed information rate for communication between the added customer device and the provider tandem; creating a trunk from the provider edge device to the provider tandem; and determining if there is sufficient committed information rate resources available on the trunk to support the established committed information rate.