Dynamic congestion control schemes in high-speed multimedia networks

Dynamic congestion control strategies for supporting real-time multimedia applications in high-speed integrated asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) networks are considered. Several traffic types including voice, video and multimedia data are expected to co-exist in future broadband integrated services digital network (B-ISDN). They are classified according to their distinct needs based on bandwidth, delay or delay-jitter and cell-loss rates. The significant merits that congestion control schemes in high-speed networks should have, in sharp contrast to conventional flow-based schemes, are identified. It is observed that a multilevel congestion control approach is essential to provide quality of service (QOS) guarantees in multimedia networks. A new service mechanism known as fast burst sharing is discussed. It has the ability to transport bursts of certain sessions without fragmenting them, thereby preserving integrity of user talkspurt, often desired in a bursty traffic environment. A number of dynamic cell marking schemes are proposed as effective traffic-compliance testing algorithms.