Congestion control in integrated voice-data frame relay networks and the case for embedded coding

Frame relay (FR) networks will be increasingly used for multiple classes of traffic, particularly for compressed voice and data. The quality of service requirements for these two classes are very different: voice is delay sensitive, data is loss sensitive. The use of low-speed access lines to FR networks requires the use of priority service for voice and this entails a requirement for separate congestion control facilities for the two services. This paper reviews a number of possible congestion control techniques, some of which involve interactions with variable-rate, embedded voice coders. Performance results are presented for an example network and it is shown that certain fairly broad optimal settings can be found for threshold levels and other design parameters