Negotiation for telecommunication resources

摘要

A telecommunication system and method provides for negotiation between participants in a desired communication to establish the communication. The desired communication is defined by a set of parameters arranged in a hierarchy of stages and values for the parameters of each higher stage are negotiated before negotiation of those in the next lower stage. When values for all parameters in all stages have been agreed, the communication is established. If one or more parameter values cannot be agreed at a stage, forensic information is provided to the participants who can retry or abandon the negotiations. In one embodiment, a failed negotiation is restarted by a participant modifying a value for a parameter in a previously agreed stage and restarting the negotiation at that stage with the new value. Various negotiating disciplines can be employed to negotiate the stages, including a Round Robin negotiating discipline. Further, two or more participants can compete within a stage and the participant with the most favorable terms is selected for inclusion in subsequent stages while the others are removed from the negotiation.