Bandwidth allocation and access control in high-speed networks

The problem of bandwidth allocation and access regulation arises in the congestion control of Broadband ISDN networks. This paper assumes that a single user, described by an on-off fluid model, is connected to the network via a leaky bucket access control mechanism. The bandwidth allocated to this user and the leaky bucket parameters are to be selected so as to guarantee a negotiated level of delay probability at the access point and packet loss probability in the network which is modelled as an output buffer. The design problem is to minimize the allocated bandwidth subject to service guarantees and stability conditions for the input and output buffers. The authors provide a desirable feasible solution to the design problem. The paper studies the effect of non-conforming users on the network performance using the leaky bucket access control corresponding to this feasible solution. The authors provide expressions that quantify the impact of the leaky bucket parameters in access regulation and the worst-case queueing behavior at the output buffer. Finally, they discuss the extension of this methodology to the multiple leaky buckets case.