Technique for signalling congestion in a packet communication network

A node in a network, referred to as “first node”, designed to signal a piece of congestion information relating to a first data stream transmitted by a second node, the first data stream and at least one second data stream being conveyed by said first node, comprising:

• a processing module, which obtains a piece of congestion information relating to the second data stream, said piece of congestion information indicating that a third node, by which the first data stream is conveyed, has detected a congestion situation for conveyance of said second stream in a data transfer plane;
• a verification module, which verifies that the first data stream has a priority level lower than that of the second data stream;
• and
• a control module, which sends a control message in a command plane to said second node, said control message carrying said piece of congestion information and comprising an identifier of a service provided by means of first data stream, the identifier being extracted from the first data stream.

A system for signaling a piece of congestion information, designed to signal a piece of congestion information relating to a first data stream transmitted by a first node, the first data stream and at least one second data stream being conveyed by a second node, said system comprising:

• said first node, comprising a sending module, which sends data packets via said first stream, and a reception module, which receives signaling for a piece of congestion information from said second node;
• said second node, which comprises:
• a processing module, which obtains the piece of congestion information relating to the second data stream, said piece of congestion information indicating that a third node, by which the first data stream is conveyed, has detected a congestion situation for conveyance of said second stream in a data transfer plane;
• a verification module, which verifies that the first data stream has a priority level lower than that of the second data stream;
• and
• a control module, which sends a control message in a command plane to said first node, said control message carrying said piece of congestion information and comprising an identifier of a service provided by means of first data stream, the identifier being extracted from the first data stream;
• said third node, by which the first data stream is conveyed, said third node comprising a marking module, which marks data packets relating to the congestion situation for conveyance of said second stream in the data transfer plane.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising a program stored thereon for a second node, comprising program code instructions to control execution of a method of signaling, when said program is executed by said node, wherein the instructions configured said second node to perform acts of:

• signaling a piece of congestion information relating to a first data stream transmitted by a first node in a network, said signaling comprising the following acts implemented by the second node, by which the first data stream and at least one second data stream are conveyed:
• obtaining a piece of congestion information relating to the second data stream, said piece of congestion information indicating that a third node, by which the first data stream is conveyed, has detected a congestion situation for conveyance of said second stream in a data transfer plane;
• verifying that the first data stream has a priority level lower than that of the second data stream;
• and
• sending a control message in a command plane to the first node transmitting the first stream, said control message carrying said piece of congestion information and comprising an identifier of a service provided by means of first data stream, the identifier being extracted from the first data stream.