Performance and fairness issues related to the EFCI rate-based flow control for the ABR service in ATM networks

This paper discusses the factors affecting performance and fairness of the Explicit Forward Congestion Indication (EFCI) rate-based flow control algorithm for the ABR service in ATM Networks. The following factors are considered: (1) origin-destination distance, (2) rate of Resource Management cells, (3) buffer size, (4) buffer threshold, (5) Rate Decrease Factor and (6) Additive Increase Rate. Simulations based on real traffic traces demonstrate the effect of these factors and the importance of optimal settings of corresponding parameters. We also observe the following: (1) although no significant fairness throughput problem has been identified, sources with high end-to-end propagation delay will experience higher queueing delay and loss probability, and (2) 10-40% of bottleneck capacity is wasted.