ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses issues relating to control of the amount of traffic entering the Asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network, in order to minimize data loss and maximize efficiency. A typical ATM call goes through three basic phases with respect to ATM traffic management: call admission control, traffic contract and traffic policing phases. The chapter describes several types of Usage Parameter Control (UPC), call admission control, priority control and traffic shaping. At the terminal equipment traffic shaping can be performed to ensure that the cell flows confrom with the traffic parameters. Traffic shaping mechanisms may be used to achieve a desired modification of the traffic characteristics. In some cases, following the UPC function, traffic shaping may be used to perform cell re-scheduling on cells identified by the UPC as conforming. For traffic shaping, cell transmission delay and the cell delay variation are important parameters.
