Patent ID: 7301903

Claim:
An apparatus for controlling traffic flow in a telecommunications network according to forecasted response times, the apparatus comprising: a manager ( 204 ) for implementing the traffic flow of a media gateway ( 206 a ); a forecasting module ( 208 ) that empirically forecasts response times of the media gateway ( 206 a ); wherein the forecasting module ( 208 ) forecasts the response times of the media gateway ( 206 a ) for an initial period using exponential smoothing forecasting, wherein the forecasting module ( 208 ) sets weights for the exponential smoothing forecasting such that a weighting of an initial response time forecast substantially greater than a weight for a recent observed response during the initial period is alleviated; and wherein the forecasting module ( 208 ) forecasts the response times of the media gateway ( 206 a ) after the initial period using exponential smoothing forecasting such that a bias arising from forecasting the traffic flow is alleviated.