CLASSIFICATION OF FAIRNESS MEASURES FOR LOCAL AND METROPOLITAN-AREA NETWORKS

Fairness of very high-speed networks became a focus of interest as soon as the Distributed Queue Dual Bus (DQDB) gained popularity. Several papers exposed its unfairness; at the same time, many researchers argued that this unfairness is purely hypothetical. In our opinion, this controversy resulted from the absence of any systematic approach to what fairness actually is. We introduce a systematic classification of fairness measures in local and metropolitan area networks. A 'points of view' approach to fairness is proposed: depending on the point of view, the observer's perception of fairness may differ significantly. This phenomenon is illustrated with the example of a simple (and apparently unfair) protocol.