Buffer size estimation for a B-ISDN link

For broadband links carrying asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) traffic, a model is proposed that enables useful measures of link performance to be obtained quite directly, for both delay sensitive and loss sensitive services. It is assumed that the traffic mix on the link results in a uniform arrival process for cells, and that the link capacity is sufficiently great that burstiness in individual services does not invalidate the uniformity assumption. From the model, a pessimistic bound for the waiting time distribution of a virtual cell is derived. Using this result, simple formulas are found for estimating the buffer size required to achieve a given probability of loss (e.g., 10 ^-15)