Bandwidth allocation and traffic scheduling for DOCSIS systems with QoS support

Abstract

A novel scheduling mechanism and a new bandwidth allocation scheme are proposed in this work to support multimedia traffic over DOCSIS (Data Over Cable System Interface Specification)-compliant cable networks. The primary goal of our research is to improve the transmission of real-time variable bit rate (VBR) traffic in terms of throughput and delay under the current DOCSIS specifications. To support integrated services, we also consider the transmission of constant bit rate (CBR) traffic and non-real-time traffic in the simulation. To demonstrate the performance, we compare the result of the proposed scheme with that of a simple multiple priority scheme. It is shown via simulation that the proposed method provides a significant amount of improvement over existing DOCSIS QoS scheduling services.