Effectiveness of MPEG-2 video transmission on ATM links: is statistical multiplexing really useful for bursty video transmission?

Much research have been devoted to the study on the statistical multiplexing gain of the bursty real-time traffic such as MPEG-2 video, and have shown that two to several times multiplexing gain can be obtained. However we still have many difficulties in the implementation of such a service. We investigate the statistical multiplexing gain of MPEG-2 coded video traffic in ATM networks by considering deterministic bit rate (DBR) and statistical bit rate (SBR) service classes. Through examples, we show that the achievable statistical multiplexing gain in the SBR service class is not as high as expected in spite of its difficult and complicated traffic control mechanisms. We also point out the effectiveness of MPEG-2 Test Model 5, which is suitable for the DBR service class of ATM and also applicable to other networks such as RSVP-based Internet.