Next Generation Internet (NGI) will offer a multitude of services, some of which have real-time requirements such as audio, video and multimedia, and should do this with an acceptable QoS. New knowledge is needed to do the required design, planning, dimensioning, and management. Service Level Agreements (SLAs) will be the contracts between network operators/service providers/users and should describe all relevant aspects of QoS that can be expected. Several architectures like IntServ, DiffServ and MPLS are proposed to achieve these goals, but the proposals need to be studied further. Service differentiation is a key issue, but how to give end- to-end guarantees with respect to loss and delay needs further research. In addition to service differentiation, admission control and possibly resource reservation are measures to be taken. The admission control schemes must be studied together with measures taken for congestion control. Laboratory experiments and model-based studies are needed to evaluate the various approaches.

Project coordinator: Professor Yuming Jiang and Professor Peder J. Emstad