A mechanism for matching application message generation with wireless network performance

Because of the modular layered architecture approach to network design, the application layer is isolated from the characteristics of the physical network. This isolation causes the application layer to blindly construct packets for transmission without regard to the likelihood that these packets will be received in a timely and reliable manner at the destination node. With this type of a system, a potentially unstable condition, in which queues grow without bound, can be avoided by adding a control loop with a feedback characteristic that provides metrics on the wireless network. In any actual implementation, queue buffers are limited in size so the queues can not grow without bound. In wireless systems, the network access delays can be rather pronounced. In such a system, knowledge of this metric can allow the application layer to adapt its message production rate to match the consumption rate of the network. This paper presents a mechanism that provides feedback of channel access metric from the data link layer to the application layer. The mechanism provides a means to exchange this information without affecting the network and transport layers of the stack. This shift from the traditional layered network architecture; while loosing some modularity and encapsulation of the stack layers, gains us more efficient use of the physical media.