Selection of a virtual path or channel in a communications network

A method of selecting a logical transmission resource for a connection in a communications network, the method comprising the steps of

• (a) receiving a request for a connection from a traffic source,
• (b) selecting a logical transmission resource from a group of available transmission resources,
• (c) testing whether the selected transmission resource has enough free capacity to accommodate the connection,
• (d) rejecting the selected transmission resource and jumping to phase (b) to select another transmission resource from said group when the selected transmission resource does not have enough free capacity to accommodate the connection,
• (e) accepting the selected transmission resource and assigning it to said connection when the transmission resource has enough free capacity to accommodate the connection,
• characterized by
• maintaining the available transmission resources in three categories so that the first category (1) includes resources that were accepted the last time they were tested, the second category (2) includes transmission resources that were rejected the last time they were tested, and the third category (3) includes transmission resources originating from the second category, whereby said maintaining includes moving transmission resources from the second category to the third category according to a predetermined criterion so that the third category includes transmission resources which were rejected the last time they were tested but which have not been tested during the current traffic situation, and
• testing the transmission resources in order so that first the resources in the first category are tested, then the resources in the third category, and finally the resources in the second category.