A packet ring fairness protocol and its impact on TCP fairness

Packet-switched ring networks usually employ destination removal to exploit spatial reuse and, hence, to achieve high performance. By promoting spatial reuse, destination removal may lead to unfair access to the medium and, consequently, to unbalanced use of resources and even to node starvation. This paper introduces LCR-SD, a novel access fairness protocol for high-performance packet ring networks. LCR-SD promotes throughput fairness among flows, and it is simple and adaptive to dynamic changes in traffic patterns. This paper also analyzes the performance of LCR-SD and its impact on TCP fairness.