A practical approach for providing QoS in the Internet backbone

This article describes a practical approach for providing quality of service in the Internet backbone. The approach considers both technical and economic factors. We first present network service provider (NSP) billing models and how NSPs provision their networks. We then analyze causes of QoS-related problems, and describe a practical approach for providing QoS. This approach makes use of good network design, differentiated services, traffic protection, traffic engineering, and traffic management techniques. The relative importance of these techniques is pointed out. Although this approach largely focuses on issues within a single NSP domain, if multiple NSPs adopt such an approach (or a similar approach), interdomain QoS can also be provided.