Patent ID: 8428611

Claim:
Method for controlling multi-path connections in radio access networks of cellular telephone networks, the method comprising: measuring an indicator of load of a primary path among a plurality of N transport paths between a pair of access network elements to which traffic of different types is allocated such that a respective primary path is assigned from the N transport paths for each type of traffic, for each incoming communication, comparing the measured load of the primary path with a threshold, and only when the measured load exceeds the threshold, assigning the incoming communication to a secondary path selected from the remaining N−1 transport paths, wherein the step of assigning the incoming communication to a secondary path comprises, if the load of the primary path is higher than the threshold: calculating available bandwidth for each of the N transport paths, comparing the available bandwidth of the primary path to the calculated available bandwidths of the remaining N−1 transport paths, if the available bandwidth of the primary path is lower than the available bandwidth of a given one of the remaining N−1 transport paths, selecting the given other N−1 transport path as a secondary path and assigning the incoming communication to said secondary path.