Effective circuits in packet-switched networks

The creation of an effective circuit between a sender device and a receiver device over the packet-switched network is described herein. To establish the effective circuit, the sender device sends a request to the receiver device through the packet-switched network. The request is associated with a bandwidth reservation from the receiver device for reception of a message from the sender device. The receiver device receives multiple requests from multiple sender devices and reserves bandwidth for at least one of the sender devices. The receiver device then sends a response to the at least one sender device providing clearance to send the message to the receiver device using the reserved bandwidth, the request and response establishing the effective circuit. The receiver device may also decline the requests of the other sender devices, causing the other sender devices to send other requests to other receiver devices.