Hints and notifications [for wireless links]

With current Internet protocols, users may experience low and unpredictable forwarding quality at wireless links. This is due to varying link properties caused by changing radio conditions. Decreased forwarding quality can cause severe degradation in utilization. This is undesirable since forwarding capacity often is expensive at wireless links because of the limited radio spectrum. Allowing the application and transport layers to communicate with wireless link layers can improve the forwarding quality and utilization. We propose to enable inter-layer communication by adding hints and notifications (HAN) to the Internet architecture. Hints can be introduced and used without notifications, while notifications need hints or a similar mechanism to operate. By using IP options and ICMP messages to implement HAN, a backward-compatible partial deployment is possible. With HAN, the network layer becomes truly wireless friendly and the radio spectrum can be used efficiently while supporting both real-time and traditional data applications.