A flow control framework for ABR services in wireless/wired ATM networks

In wireless/wired asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) networks, it is important to provide available bit rate (ABR) services with a proper flow control scheme in order to efficiently utilize the limited and expensive radio spectrum. This paper proposes a flow control framework for the ABR traffic in wireless/wired ATM networks. In this framework, the base station calculates the rate of transmission for all the ABR sources that are communicating through it, which is referred to as the rate allocation scheme. The rates calculated by the rate allocation scheme are passed to the medium access control (MAC) uplink protocol which permits the uplink transmissions of ABR sources according to these rates. We propose a fair share calculation formula for the rate allocation scheme, which is based on the quality of the wireless channels between the ABR sources and the base station, and also on the bandwidth availability of each connection along the network links between the base station and the corresponding destination. We also discuss how the necessary parameters for the fair share calculation formula can be obtained in a stationary environment as well as in a dynamic environment