A congestion control framework for ATM networks

A congestion control framework for ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) networks is proposed. Specifically, it is suggested that the network provide two different services: express service and first-class service. Express service is appropriate for real-time applications (e.g., voice and video) whereas first-class service is appropriate for non-real-time applications (e.g., data). To provide such services, the proposed congestion control scheme prevents congestion inside the network by controlling the congestion at two levels: virtual circuit (VC) level and packet level. Express VC traffic is not subject to any flow control. At each intermediate node, transit packets are simply relayed with no traffic control. Various issues related to this scheme are discussed and its performance analyzed