A new algorithm for traffic conditioners to improve proportional fairness in IP networks

The current trend in telecommunications networks addresses an All-IP vision, since most user applications are based on IP, and additionally, IP networks operation is simpler than other more complex ones. These new trends in multimedia communications are giving rise to an increasing need of quality of service (QoS). The Differentiated Services (DiffServ) QoS architecture will provide the means to help underlying technologies, like MPLS, to guarantee the QoS required to support data and real-time services. In DiffServ, QoS is mainly provided with traffic control at edge nodes, and this task is carried out by traffic conditioners. In this paper, we introduce a new policy function for traffic conditioning. Its ability to react to new network conditions makes end-users to get excess bandwidth in proportion to their contracted target rates. We call this method Proportional Excess Traffic conditionER (PETER). Through extensive simulations, we confirm the effectiveness of our approach in providing both a proportional excess bandwidth distribution and assured contracted target rates.