Probabilistic congestion control for non-adaptable flows

ABSTRACT

In this paper we present a TCP-friendly congestion control scheme for non-adaptable flows. The main characteristic of these flows is that their data rate is determined by an application and cannot be adapted to the current congestion situation of the network. Typical examples of non-adaptable flows are those produced by networked computer games or live audio and video transmissions where adaptation of the quality is not possible (e.g., since it is already at the lowest possible quality level). We propose to perform congestion control for non-adaptable flows by suspending them at appropriate times so that the aggregation of multiple non-adaptable flows behaves in a TCP-friendly manner. The decision whether or not a flow is to be suspended is based on random experiments. In order to allocate probabilities for these experiments, the data rate of the non-adaptable flow is compared to the rate that a TCP flow would achieve under the same conditions. We present a detailed discussion of the proposed scheme and evaluate it through extensive simulation with the network simulator ns-2.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
      C.2.2 Network Protocols

General Terms:
Algorithms

Keywords:
TCP-friendliness, congestion control, non-adaptable flows