Bandwidth allocation in interconnected local area networks

Multimedia applications need communication services with guaranteed performance. However, existing LANs provide best-effort services only. Therefore, this paper discusses the options for real-time data link layer architectures. An important part of such an architecture is a scheme for bandwidth allocation. A new scheme for bandwidth allocation is presented which takes into account the specific situation of interconnected, heterogeneous LANs. The new scheme is derived by studying basic scheduling problems occurring in today´s networks. Moreover, we present a formal description of the scheme. As the traffic of multimedia applications is likely to be VBR, the application of the proposed scheme to VBR traffic is demonstrated