Internet protocols for multimedia communications. II. Resource reservation, transport, and application protocols

Abstract

Part I (ibid., July-Oct. 1997) surveyed the evolution of Internet protocols and applications and described the Internet protocol IPv6 in detail. This part discusses new developments at the upper layers that support real-time Internet multimedia, such as audio and video conferencing and shared whiteboard applications. Application-level framing (ALF), proposed in 1990 for protocol and application design, now forms the basis for many new Internet protocols and applications, including Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) and Mbone multimedia applications. RTP supports real-time applications that adapt to changing network situations to maintain the quality of service (QoS). The Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP) provides new Internet services with higher quality than best-effort by means of resource reservations.