Traffic engineering for VBR video with long-range dependence

Recent studies at Bellcore have shown that traffic rates in high-speed data networks exhibit 'long-range dependence' in their correlation, characterized by the so-called Hurst parameter H assuming values in the range 0.50.5. We report here the results of an investigation undertaken to bridge the gap in our understanding of the results of these two studies, and to analyze the effect of the Hurst parameter on link-engineering for ATM traffic. Our investigation has shown that a curious 'scaling' property of streams with long-range dependence, derived in another recent Bellcore study, helps to bridge the gap by accounting for the results of both studies. The analysis suggests that a high value of H is not, in itself, a reason to suppose that Markovian traffic models will lead to under engineering of bandwidth on ATM links.