Not all bits have equal value: Investigating users' network QoS requirements

摘要

The number of Internet users is expected to triple between 1998 and 2002 largely because of new applications (such as videoconferencing) and new services (such as e-commerce). This shift in usage imposes higher Quality of Service (QoS) requirements at different levels of granularity. It also means that the traditional Internet way of managing quality (best-effort) has to be replaced by a more service-oriented approach. The aim of this paper is to investigate end-users' cognitive and perceptive QoS requirements. We present empirical results on user QoS preferences and QoS graduations. Guidelines for translating these results into metrics that can be used to guide resource allocation mechanisms are discussed.