A proportional feedback scheme for ATM networks

Available bit rate (ABR) service class is proposed by Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) Forum to provide the “best-effort” services like traditional TCP/IP traffic. It is designed to make use of the remaining bandwidth not used by VBR and CBR. However, the bursty nature of ABR traffic makes it difficult to prevent buffers on ATM switches from overflowing. A number of schemes have been proposed for ABR traffic control. In this paper, a proportional scheme that is rate-based hop-by-hop flow control is proposed. A mathematical model is built to analyze the hop-by-hop flow control scheme. It is shown the scheme can utilize full bandwidth without any cell loss. It is also shown the scheme has low queuing delay and fast transient response.