Existing reservation protocols such as RSVP implement so-called immediate reservations (lmRe) that are requested and granted just when the resources are actually needed. This paper describes the design, implementation and evaluation of a novel advance reservation protocol. Its major property is that resources are reserved well in advance to the actual usage phase. This way, the probability of resource availability can be increased, and network utilization can improved. Specific aspects covered in this paper are the mapping of ReRA (resource reservation in advance) onto RSVP, the evaluation and selection of an appropriate call admission control strategy, the internal management of advance reservations, the mapping of the approach onto A TM, as well as its implementation and evaluation.