Performance of explicit rate flow control in ATM networks

For the last 26 years packet networks have insured low data loss for bursty data traffic with flow control which the author introduced in the ARPANET in 1969 and as a standard in X.25 in 1975. However, from the time ATM was introduced commercially around 1992 until now, flow control has been totally missing. The credit flow control used historically in packet networks was far too expensive at ATM speeds and no alternative had been developed. Without flow control, ATM has been no more effective than a high speed circuit switch. Over the past two years the ATM Forum has studied and refined the authors proposal for explicit rate flow control. This recommendation which will be released in early 1996 will finally permit ATM to carry data traffic with high efficiency and with extremely low loss. This paper examines the performance of various possible versions of rate flow control permissible under this recommendation.