Virtual-circuit load control in fast packet-switched broadband networks

The authors consider the bandwidth management issues in a congestion control framework proposed for fast packet-switched broadband networks. Specifically, they study a simple threshold-based strategy where the threshold parameters are determined so as to minimize a weighted sum of call blocking probabilities while providing a required GOS (grade of service) in terms of blocking performance to each class of calls. They develop an efficient integer optimization algorithm using the penalty function method to find optimal threshold values. This optimization process requires blocking probabilities of each class of calls as a function of the threshold parameters. The authors derive a simple approximation technique to obtain the probabilities using first-moment matching. This technique can be readily used to solve large problems (e.g. many classes of calls and/or large amount of bandwidth). Simulation results show that the technique yields accurate call blocking probabilities for a wide range of parameter values of practical interest.<>