Scheduling disciplines for HFC systems: what can we learn from ATM scheduling?

The support of multimedia traffic with different quality of service (QoS) requirements on an integrated network has proven to be difficult. It requires simple design of conceptually complex mechanisms. We study the application of proposed ATM scheduling disciplines to a hybrid fiber/coaxial (HFC) system. Switching networks are based on point-to-point communication links whereas HFC is a shared medium. If we can show that the structural differences between the environments do not affect the functionality of the scheduler a great amount of knowledge on supporting QoS can be imported to HFC systems from switching studies. As an example self clock fair queueing (SCFQ) is embedded in an HFC system. Simulation results show that the scheduler maintains its capabilities in guaranteeing the QoS in the HFC system.