Defining high-speed protocols: five challenges and an example that survives the challenges

The First IEEE Gigabit Networking (GBN) Workshop defined a set of characteristics of “Interesting” high-speed applications. The GBN criteria ensure that the application addresses a significant problem, and that it actually requires a gigabit network. This paper presents five challenges that augment the GBN criteria. These challenges ask whether gigabit applications require new research into different protocols, or can be supported by existing protocols that merely run faster. It shows a class of applications, interactive distributed multimedia, namely interactive real-time World Wide Web (WWW) access, that survive the challenges. It also shows how source presenting is a way to use excess bandwidth-delay product to reduce the browser response time, and how this is one example of a truly gigabit protocol