Multimedia Network Protocols:  Where Are We?

                         Domenico Ferrari

                         The Tenet Group
               University of California at Berkeley
           and International Computer Science Institute
 

Protocols for multimedia communication are needed to integrate into a
single network services intended to satisfy the different requirements
of multiple types of traffic.  An essential prerequisite for designing
those protocols is that a service model be chosen; in other words, the
services to be offered by the network must be selected and specified
in detail.  This paper presents the service models proposed, or being
developed, by two groups within the Internet community, by the ATM
community, and by the Tenet Group; it also compares them, focusing on
their common characteristics and their possible convergences; while
doing this, it reveals some of the characteristics of the services the
first integrated-services networks are likely to offer.  The services
referred to in this paper are those at the network and transport
layers, which support the services to be offered to the system's end
users.

Keywords:  multimedia, protocols, integrated-services networks,
Internet, ATM, Tenet, service models.