Worst case analysis of leaky bucket regulators in broadband integrated networks

Leaky bucket has been proposed as one of the policing and traffic shaping mechanisms in future broadband integrated networks that support heterogeneous users with varying traffic characteristics. We study the worst case performance of leaky bucket, and its application as a regulator in controlling traffic streams in network nodes. In addition, we propose a general strategy for packet scheduling using leaky bucket regulators. With a suitable choice of leaky bucket parameters, the strategy is able to imitate other well-known scheduling algorithms such as TDM, FIFO and virtual clock