WiMax Operator's Manual
WiMax Operator's Manual
WiMax Operator's Manual
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CHAPTER 6 ■ BEYOND ACCESS 151<br />
some cases, metro fiber, ordinary circuit telephone switches do not determine the direction of<br />
the data traffic any longer. Rather, the switch sends the data traffic to a network access point<br />
(NAP) in what is usually a local telephone call, and from there circuit-switching procedures of<br />
the sort utilized in traditional telephone networks are no longer invoked. Instead, a core router<br />
assumes the function of directing data traffic through the network.<br />
Core routers are specialized switches that switch individual packets rather than complete<br />
streams, and, in the case of best-effort traffic without stringent QoS requirements, the individual<br />
packets may take different routes through the network to avoid congestion.<br />
Routers themselves may be yoked with ATM switches or may even incorporate ATM functionality,<br />
and in such cases the ATM protocol may be used to encapsulate IP traffic. This results<br />
in some loss of efficiency but, for reasons that go beyond the scope of this book, aids in shaping<br />
traffic and managing bandwidth. I see ATM gradually losing ground to MPLS, which has similar<br />
capabilities but offers greater efficiency and much more flexibility when it comes to service<br />
creation. The tendency today in the core routers used at major Internet hubs is to combine the<br />
functionality of an MPLS switch with an Internet router in a single box.<br />
NAPs and their associated routers are generally owned and operated by long-distance<br />
carriers, though a number of independents exist such as Equinix, Focal Communications<br />
Corporation, and Tel X that maintain and operate NAPs of their own. Most such facilities aim<br />
to serve independent ISPs, but in some cases local competitive access providers also will be<br />
accommodated.<br />
If wireless broadband operators want to confine themselves to offering nothing more<br />
than local high-speed access, none of this matters terribly much, but if they want to offer or<br />
support conferencing (particularly videoconferencing), streaming media services, Web hosting<br />
services, IP storage, real-time interactive applications such as multiplayer gaming, and<br />
pure end-to-end IP telephony, then the nature of the Internet connection becomes crucially<br />
important.<br />
The Internet, as I have indicated previously, was conceived as a best-effort delivery<br />
network where the predictability of a connection was sacrificed in the interest of overall<br />
robustness and redundancy. The Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)<br />
suite was never designed to support low-latency, constant bit rate transmissions, and although<br />
some of the older ancillary protocols such as UDP provided some support for delay-sensitive<br />
applications, the Internet never matched the ATM networks set up by the large telcos in terms<br />
of QoS.<br />
Because of this basic deficiency, the major router manufacturers (Cisco Systems and<br />
Juniper Networks) have strongly supported standards (principally MPLS, RSVP, and DiffServ)<br />
that would enable routers to vie with ATM switches in supporting full QoS across a wide range<br />
of applications. Indeed, some would contend that current MPLS router/switches actually do a<br />
better job of supporting differentiated services than do legacy ATM switches.<br />
Today most of the large carrier-class IP routers on the market are MPLS enabled and can<br />
support QoS for multimedia and real-time interactive applications, but that does not mean<br />
that a high-speed, high-fidelity multimedia transmission sent out over the public network is<br />
necessarily going to arrive intact at its destination. QoS enforced through the implementation<br />
of MPLS will result in more efficient use of bandwidth than would be the case carrying IP over<br />
ATM, but it still involves reservation of bandwidth, which means that bandwidth cannot be<br />
made available to anyone else until the transmission is finished. Time-sensitive transmissions<br />
simply make greater demands on capacity, and capacity always comes at a price particularly in<br />
the metro and the last mile. Long-distance carriers can choose not to meet those demands.