Phantom: a simple and effective flow control scheme

This paper presents Phantom, a simple constant space algorithm for rate-bas ed flow control. As shown by our simulations, it converges fast to a fair r ate allocation while generating a moderate queue length. While our approach can be easily implemented in ATM switches for managing available bit rate (ABR) traffic, it is also suitable for flow control in TCP router-based net works. Both the introduced overhead and the required modifications in TCP f low control systems are minimal. The implementation of this approach in TCP guarantees fairness and provides a unifying interconnection between TCP ro uters and ATM networks. The new algorithm easily inter-operates with curren t TCP flow control mechanisms and thus can be gradually introduced into ins talled-based TCP networks. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserv ed.