PCP: a bandwidth guaranteed transport service for IP networks

The increasing demand for a variety of new Internet services with different and possibly stringent QoS requirements (i.e. Internet telephony, videoconferencing etc.) requires the design of mechanisms to support QoS guarantees. The current solutions proposed in IETF, RSVP (Resource reSerVation Protocol) and differentiated services, though suitable for many applications, may result inefficient to support real-time services on a call basis. The RSVP is not really scalable and requires substantial changes in the Internet architecture, while differentiated services provide guarantees mostly on a static and permanent basis. In this paper we assume an Internet architecture supporting multiple priorities as needed in differentiated services, and introduce the PCP (phantom circuit protocol), a mechanism that provides a guaranteed bandwidth transport service for circuit oriented connections. The PCP includes a fully scalable call admission control (CAC) and operates on a per call basis. Simulation of the protocol performance for CBR (constant bit rate) traffic under various network conditions show the adherence of the mechanism to theoretical expectations.