Abstract: Communication among entities such as customer premises equipment (20, 22, 28) in a telecommunications network (10) is set up through the use of agents representing each entity (20, 22, 28). Agents representing corresponding entities in the telecommunications network (10) negotiate over the type of communication sessions in which the corresponding entities want to be involved. The negotiation process involves the exchange of proposals by agents. A proposal comprises one or more planned actions which can be taken in the network (10). One agent generates a proposal acceptable to it and transmits the proposal to another agent. The receiving agent determines if the received proposal is acceptable to it and if not generates a counterproposal. The process continues until a proposal acceptable to both agents is found or it is determined that there is no proposal for realizing the particular type of communication session which is acceptable to both agents.