Distributed Congestion Control in a Packet Network: The Channel Load Limiter

Abstract

Congestion control in packet networks has been commonly associated with buffer management. While buffers are indeed an essential resource, they should cause no concern as long as line load remains within preset limits. Simple analysis and simulation performed on the CIGALE network show that the most critical resource is line bandwidth, not buffers. Based on this observation, a simple method called channel load limiter (CLL) has been devised. Load factors (green, yellow, red) are propagated throughout the network as an adjunction to adaptive routing. Counter measures include sending signaling packets to offending sources, and traffic deviation on less loaded routes. The limits and possible improvements to the CLL scheme are also mentioned.