{"draft":"draft-floyd-tsvwg-besteffort-03","doc_id":"RFC5290","title":"Comments on the Usefulness of Simple Best-Effort Traffic","authors":["S. Floyd","M. Allman"],"format":["ASCII","HTML"],"page_count":"20","pub_status":"INFORMATIONAL","status":"INFORMATIONAL","source":"INDEPENDENT","abstract":"This document presents some observations on \"simple best-effort\r\ntraffic\", defined loosely for the purposes of this document as\r\nInternet traffic that is not covered by Quality of Service (QOS)\r\nmechanisms, congestion-based pricing, cost-based fairness, admissions\r\ncontrol, or the like.  One observation is that simple best-effort\r\ntraffic serves a useful role in the Internet, and is worth keeping.\r\nWhile differential treatment of traffic can clearly be useful, we\r\nbelieve such mechanisms are useful as *adjuncts* to simple best-\r\neffort traffic, not as *replacements* of simple best-effort\r\ntraffic.  A second observation is that for simple best-effort\r\ntraffic, some form of rough flow-rate fairness is a useful goal for\r\nresource allocation, where \"flow-rate fairness\" is defined by the\r\ngoal of equal flow rates for different flows over the same path.  This \r\nmemo provides information for the Internet community.","pub_date":"July 2008","keywords":["flow-rate fairness"],"obsoletes":[],"obsoleted_by":[],"updates":[],"updated_by":[],"see_also":[],"doi":"10.17487\/RFC5290","errata_url":null}