THE TENET EXPERIENCE AND THE DESIGN OF PROTOCOLS FOR INTEGRATED-SERVICES INTERNETWORKS

The research done by the Tenet Group in multimedia networking has reac hed a point where it may be useful to reflect on the significance of i ts results for the current debate on how integrated-services internetw orks should be designed. Such reflections constitute the main subject of this paper. The principles of the work and the conclusions reached so far by the Tenet researchers are discussed in the light of the conf lict between the two major technologies being proposed to build future information infrastructures: namely, the Internet and the ATM technol ogies. The Tenet approach suggests one feasible way for resolving the conflict to the advantage of all the users of those infrastructures. T his paper discusses various fundamental aspects of integrated-services network design: the choice of the service model, the type of charging policy to be adopted, and the selection of a suitable architecture.