A congestion control system for an advanced intelligent network

We have described a network-level system for controlling congestion at the service control points (SCPs) in an advanced intelligent network, by restricting traffic from communication nodes accessing a congested SCP. The main points of this paper can be summarized as follows. (1) Network-level congestion control restricting traffic from communication nodes accessing a congested SCP is an effective congestion control method in an advanced IN. Its implementation requires collecting network traffic data in real time, deciding an appropriate control type and carrying it out. In an advanced IN there may be many different congestion causes and corresponding control types, making necessary complex data processing which can best be carried out by an operations system (OpS) equipped with facilities for network-level congestion control. (2) In a typical model of an advanced IN, we have listed some representative SCP congestion types and control types, showing how they are interrelated. We have further described the functions and processing flow for provision in the OpS responsible for network-level congestion control, and shown a method of implementing decision processing based on the congestion types and control types, along with a method of determining the amount of traffic control to be imposed.