Near-optimal bandwidth allocation for multimedia virtual circuit switched networks

Abstract

We analyse the performance of multimedia virtual circuit switched networks. Voice, video and data traffic are considered. Although closed-form expressions for the end-to-end performance measures (probabilities of voice and video blocking, normalized voice processing loads, probabilities of video rate dropping and data queueing) are available, they cannot be applied directly because of the prohibitive computation required. As a result, fast and accurate approximation schemes based on the reduced load method are developed. The bandwidth allocated to a video call is varied; together with the step size of the virtual paths, the performance of the network can be controlled and optimized. Extensive numerical results are given to validate the approximation schemes developed.