Performance analysis of multiple priorities on token ring LANs to support multimedia

Transporting multimedia traffic is becoming an essential requirement for communications networks. Unlike data traffic, multimedia traffic has strict demands on latency, throughput, filter, and bandwidth. This paper demonstrates the capabilities of the currently available 16-Mbps token ring to simultaneously carry data and multimedia traffic. Experimental data and simulation results that show the effects of data on multimedia traffic and vice versa are presented. The use of the token ring priority mechanism for traffic regulation is demonstrated. The use of multiple levels of priorities for multimedia traffic is shown to be needed to meet the performance requirements of various types of multimedia traffic. Furthermore, the results show that these requirements can be met in the presence of bursty data traffic.