Method and apparatus for provisioned and dynamic quality of service in a communications network

An apparatus to provide dynamic quality of service in a communications network, comprising:

• means for receiving a first resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP) request for a connection from a sender communications site to a first receiver communications site, the first RSVP request including first quality of service information;
• means for establishing a first RSVP connection tree from a sender communications site to the first receiver communications site, the first RSVP connection tree being a point-to-multipoint tree with a first quality of service based on the first quality of service information;
• means for receiving a second RSVP request for a connection from the sender communications site to a second receiver communications site, the second RSVP request including second quality of service information;
• means for establishing a second RSVP connection tree from the sender communications site to the second receiver communications site if the second quality of service information is not within a threshold range from the first quality of service information, second RSVP connection tree being a point-to-multipoint tree with a second quality of service based on the second quality of service information;
• and
• means for adding a branch from the first RSVP connection tree to the second receiver communications site if the second quality of service information is within the threshold range from the first quality of service information.

A method of providing dynamic quality of service in a communications network including a sender communications site, a first receiver communications site and a second receiver communications site, comprising the steps of:

• receiving a first resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP) request for a connection from the sender communications site to the first receiver communications site, the first RSVP request including first quality of service information;
• establishing a first RSVP connection tree from the sender communications site to the first receiver communications site, the first RSVP connection tree being a point-to-multipoint tree with a first quality of service based on the first quality of service information;
• receiving a second RSVP request for a connection from the sender communications site to the second receiver communications site, the second RSVP request including second quality of service information;
• establishing either a second RSVP connection tree from the sender communications site to the second receiver communications site or a branch from the first RSVP connection tree to the second receiver communications site based on the first quality of service information and the second quality of service information.