A label switching router for a switching network configured for source routing can be configured to modify one or more reported properties of a link associated with that router based on one or more link quality metrics. For example, a router can include a link with available bandwidth of 10 Gbps, a value that can be used by a headend when evaluating nodes of the network against a set of constraints required by a particular requested connection or tunnel. A link of that router may exhibit an increased bit error rate which can be used by the label switching router to artificially deflate available bandwidth, thereby reducing the number of label switching paths including the router are selected by the headend.