Support for predictability and relative service differentiation using selective packet dropping

In spite of the availability of sophisticated network quality of service (QoS) guaranteeing mechanisms, it is apparent that a large number of applications will continue using the best effort service class. The main reason for this is that the QoS guaranteeing mechanisms are complex and many applications are not capable of using these complex services. At the same time, the standard best effort service is rather unpredictable and hence insufficient for many applications. Thus augmenting best effort services to an appropriate standard without incurring a high level of complexity is a necessary. In this paper two such augmentations are described in the context of the UBR service ATM networks. Selective packet discarding is used to achieve the necessary goals