[e2e] Internet packet dynamics

[Craig Partridge]

In message <Pine.GSO.4.58.0403161332180.17431 at stimpy.eecis.udel.edu>, "Armando 
L. Caro Jr." writes:

>First, I don't see how it is possible to distinguish congestion induced
>outages from non-congestion induced outages. Maybe it's possible in some
>scenarios if the sender tracks delay variations similar to how FAST TCP
>does, but this technique probably won't work with flash crowds.

You can make a very good estimate using two pieces of information.

First, a router knows what fraction of packets arrive trashed (e.g., CRC
errors).

Second, the router knows what fraction of packets it is dropping on the floor.

So you can begin to infer the components of the loss rate.

Craig

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Craig Partridge
Chief Scientist
BBN Technologies