Importance

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Abstract

A packet transmission system includes a mechanism for controling congestion (30, FIG. 2) in the transmission system by comparing, at each switching node of the system (52, FIG. 5), the traffic load at that node and the traffic loads at all immediately neighboring switching nodes. Such traffic loads can be measured by node buffer utilization, either discretely or continuously, and loading information exchanged by the use of messages between the switching nodes (42, 54). The packet transmission speed between any two adjacent switching nodes is then adjusted (47, 62) in response to the relative traffic loads so as to reduce the traffic incoming to the more congested node. The transmission speed is never reduced to zero, however, to insure that a mechanism remains in place to relieve congestion at every transmitting switching node.

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First Claim