Evaluation of new approach for fair downlink bandwidth distribution in TCP/IP networks

Fair bandwidth allocation and congestion control is an important issue when accessing a common shared link in the modern TCP/IP networks. In this paper, we propose and evaluate fair downlink bandwidth distribution method which is based on online upstream control and limitation. The method is designed to maintain the fair shared bandwidth allocation by adaptively controlling the upload rate of the each connection in the network “bottleneck”. The paper presents the results of the experimental method evaluation on the testbed network. The proposed control method was applied to the access router (gateway) - that shares the common link to the public network. The access router estimates the upload/download rate of the each of the connection and calculates the proper upload limits which are based on this estimate and pre-defined fair bandwidth distribution principles. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm considerably enhances the degree of the fairness on the shared link.