Spectral analysis of packet loss rate at a statistical multiplexer for multimedia services

Uses the well known technique of power spectral representation to characterize the second order statistics of packet loss during congestion at a statistical multiplexer. Unlike the steady state statistics, the second order statistics measures the time correlation behavior of loss. Typically, the low frequency loss power is associated with long periods of highly consecutive loss. The effect of the loss rate power spectrum on transmission qualities is service dependent. The study indicates that, by selective packet discarding, one can properly change the distribution of the overall loss rate spectrum among the multiplexed traffic streams, which can significantly improve the transmission quality of individual services. Moreover, with the design of multi-level buffer overload control, one can tune the loss rate steady state distribution of different priority streams to a piece-wise step function, which minimizes the packet loss impact on service qualities