Method and system in a packet switching network for dynamically sharing the bandwidth of a virtual path connection among different types of connections

A method of sharing among a plurality of virtual channel connections (VCCs) the bandwidth of a bandwidth adjustable virtual path connection (VPC) established between a source node (node 2) and a destination node (node 5) within a packet or cell switching network comprising a plurality of nodes interconnected with transmission links, said virtual channel connections comprising bandwidth adjustable reserved virtual channel connections (c) with minimum bandwidth reservation and/or reserved virtual channel connections (a, b) and/or non reserved virtual channel connections (d) with minimum bandwidth reservation, or/and totally non reserved connections (d) without minimum bandwidth reservation,

• said method characterized in that it involves in the source node (node 2) of the bandwidth adjustable virtual path connection the steps of:
• receiving a notification indicating a new bandwidth available for the bandwidth adjustable virtual path connection;
• adjusting the bandwidth of the virtual channel connections according to said new bandwidth;
• if said new bandwidth (new_H) is lower than the sum of the current reserved bandwidth (C+D+F) of each virtual channel connection (a, b, c, d), said step of adjusting the bandwidth of these virtual channel connections comprises the step of:
• reducing the current reserved bandwidth of each bandwidth adjustable virtual channel connection (c) by applying a ratio (R) to the part of the current bandwidth reserved above the minimum bandwidth reservation so that for each bandwidth adjustable virtual channel connection (i):
• new reserved bandwidth (i)=(current reserved bandwidth (i)−minimum bandwidth reservation (i))×R+minimum bandwidth reservation (i).