Patent ID: 6845101

Claim:
A communication network comprising: second switching equipment; and first switching equipment connected to the second switching equipment by connection paths, the connection paths comprising a first set of connection paths and a second set of connection paths, the first switching equipment allocating a first transmission channel to any one of the first set of connection paths and the second switching equipment allocating a second transmission channel to anyone of the second set of connection paths, the first switching equipment comprising: a first storage area for storing bits of information associated with an availability of bandwidth for the first set of connection paths; a second storage area for storing bits of information associated with an availability of bandwidth for the second set of connection paths; and a controller to determine whether a suitable connection path exists in the first set of connection paths based on the bits of information stored in the first storage area, the suitable connection path providing suitable bandwidth for a requested connection; wherein if the suitable connection path does not exist in the first set of connection paths, the controller selects the second switching equipment, based on the bits of information stored in the second storage area, to allocate the second transmission channel to the requested connection.