Traffic spreading to reduce blocking in a groomed CLOS communication switch

摘要

A method and apparatus are disclosed for spreading the component signals of a groomed input circuit through a three-stage CLOS switch network. The spreading algorithm includes sequentially evaluating each midstage switching module as to the availability of a connection between an assigned source switching module and an assigned destination switching module having sufficient spare bandwidth to accommodate one or more of the component signals. A load sharing algorithm can be used to spread the component signals among the midstage switching stages. In this way the available bandwidth of each of the midstage switching modules is evaluated for each of the component signals and each component signal is routed through the midstage switching module having the largest available bandwidth.