Abstract: An edge router receives datagrams to be forwarded an SVC. If the SVC is not already set up, the edge router buffers the datagrams until the SVC set up is complete. The buffered datagrams are forwarded once the SVC set up is complete. According to another aspect of the present invention, different buffering requirements are supported for different user applications. A policy table may be configured by a service provider specifying the requirements associated with potentially each flow (e.g., combination of source/destination IP addresses, source/destination port number), and the datagram on each flow may be buffered accordingly.