Abstract: A congestion control system is provided which is an enhancement of the dynamic call routing system taught by Szybicki et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 4,284,852. The congestion control system includes two parts, a restrictive control and an expansive control. The restrictive control uses data collected by the network processor to provide a call gapping recommendation which is automatically updated each cycle (typically 10 seconds). The call gapping recommendation is used to restrict entry of calls to the network. The expansive control system uses a call compression factor to deflect tandem traffic from overloaded nodes. If direct traffic continues to increase, the restrictive control takes over from the expansive control.