Spacing cells protects and enhances utilization of ATM network links

It is shown that peak cell rate policing can be combined with fast reservation protocols for achieving statistical multiplexing in asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) networks. A cell spacer-controller architecture which smooths out cell clusters according to the original period both at the user network interface (UNI) and at network node interface (NNI) is proposed. A performance evaluation of the spacer-controller is presented. The evaluation involves modeling the spacer-controller, dimensioning a virtual scheduling algorithm, and the impact on cell delay variation (CDV). It is shown that large CDVs may induce severe degradation in the accuracy of usage parameter control/network parameter control mechanisms.<>