End-to-End Rate Control in ABR

We compare between the binary congestion indication scheme and the explicit rate indication scheme proposed for congestion control of ATM's available bit rate service (ABR). The fairness problems of the binary congestion indication scheme that arise when mixing long and short distance traffic are investigated. Our simulations suggest that the unfairness noticed in this case towards the long distance traffic mainly results from the difference in the number of the traversed hops and not from the difference in propagation delay. We also introduce a simple approach with which this unfairness can be avoided. This approach is based on setting the multiple decrease factor in an inverse relation to the number of the traversed hops