Bandwidth allocation interconnected local area networks

Multimedia applications need communication services with guaranteed performance. However, existing LANs provide best-effort services only. Therefore, this paper briefly discusses the options fbr real-time data link layer architectures. An important part of such an architecture is a scheme for bandwidth allocation. In this paper a new scheme for bandwidth allocation is presented which takes into account the specific situation of interconnected, heterogeneous LANs. The Mew scheme is derived by studing basic scheduling problems occurring in today's networks. Moreover, we present a formal description of the scheme. As the traffic of multimedia applications is likely to be VER, the application of the proposed scheme to VER traffic is demonstrated.