Patent ID: 7236483

Claim:
A method for controlling bandwidth in a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) system which includes a first node and a second node, wherein the first node and the second node are provided with gateways, and the gateways support a plurality of channels and are capable of performing bidirectional communication between endpoint terminals, the method comprising the steps of: comparing, at a plurality of gateway devices of the first node that received a call setup request from one of the endpoint terminals, a predetermined bandwidth limit of the second node to be routed and a bandwidth limit of a corresponding gateway device of the second node with a bandwidth usage of the second node received from the second node and a bandwidth usage of a corresponding gateway device of the second node; processing selectively, at each gateway device of the first node, an Internet protocol call setup according to a result of said comparing step, and calculating actual bandwidth usage of said each gateway device in consideration of a number of calls that are currently being processed and an actual packet size of each of said calls; and transferring the calculated actual bandwidth usage of said each gateway device to each of the plurality of gateway devices of the second node.