Since A.K.Erlang analyzed telephone switching networks in the beginning of the 20th century, queueing theory has been developed as a tool for the performance evaluation of several applications and the optimized designs. Internet traffic, however, has different characteristics from the traditional teletraffic ones and it is believed that the traditional queneing theory is hard to be applicable to the performance issues of the Internet. In this paper, we summarize the history of queneing theory and give the strong and weak points in the context of network design issues. Then we focus on the traffic characteristics of the Internet and show why the traditional analysis cannot be applied to the Internet design issues. Finally, we present the current research topic of the Internet traffic modeling and discuss whether queneing theory can be applied to the performance evaluation and optimized design issues for the Internet.
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