Broadband traffic modeling: simple solutions to hard problems

A much clearer picture of the progress toward an integrated high-speed multiservice network is now emerging. Such networks were anticipated over 20 years ago, at a time when packet switching was just another way to transmit data. Now the technology is so mature that media barons are organizing their investments in order to take advantage of its profitability. Many of the technical problems are now solved, and the fundamental protocols required for these networks are sufficiently well-defined to support a rapidly expanding industry. However, consensus on how to talk about the statistics of the data transmitted around these networks has not been readily forthcoming. Nevertheless, there now exists a family of models with sufficient richness to describe real traffic fairly well, which can be parameterized conveniently, and which degenerates to a readily analyzable Gaussian model in the situation of very large networks. This analysis leads to important architectural conclusions which accord with common sense, in particular the conclusion that integrated networks of the future should be able to provide better and better service with efficiency tending toward perfection. This is a rather happy conclusion which thoroughly confirms the current rapid drive toward an all-encompassing integrated multiservice network. Rather than the increase in traffic and diversity of service types leading to greater and greater complexity, it seems that the flow of traffic in our networks may become steadily more manageable.