1. A multi-service communications network having a substantially polygonal topology and comprising more than one node, each node comprising one or more nodal policy and being configured to process one or more services in accordance with said one or more nodal policy, each nodal policy comprising; (i) a service request identifier, said service request identifier determining the type of service request that may be processed by each respective node; and (ii) one or more service request criteria, said service request criteria determining whether a type of service request defined by said service request identifier will be processed by each respective node, the processing of said one or more services determining an activity indicator of said node such that the node may vary one or more of the nodal policies in accordance with the activity indicator characterised in that service requests are inserted into node locations along at least one edge of the multi-service communications network.