Immediate ready implementation of virtually congestion free guarantedd service capable network

• US 20070008884A1
• Filed: 10/07/2003
• Published: 01/11/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 10/08/2003
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Bob Tang
• Original Assignee: Bob Tang
• Inventors: Tang, Bob
• Application Number:
  US10/572,218
• Publication Number:
  US 20070008884A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/230
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/193 at the transport layer, e.g. TCP related
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/283 in response to processing delays, e.g. caused by jitter or round trip time [RTT]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/16 Implementation or adaptation of Internet protocol [IP], of transmission control protocol [TCP] or of user datagram protocol [UDP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/163 In-band adaptation of TCP data exchange; In-band control procedures
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

Various techniques including simple TCP/IP protocol modifications are presented for immediate ready implementations of virtually congestion free guaranteed service capable network, without requiring use of existing QoS/MPLS techniques nor requiring any of the switches/routers softwares within the network to be modified or contribute to achieving the end-to-end performance results nor requiring provision of unlimited bandwidths at each and every inter-node links within the network.

Claims

1. Methods for virtually congestion free guaranteed service capable data communications network/Internet/Internet subsets/Proprietary Internet segment/WAN/LAN [hereinafter refers to as network] with any combinations/subsets of features (a) to (f)

(a) where all packets/data units sent from a source within the network arriving at a destination within the network all arrive without a single packet being dropped due to network congestions

(b) applies only to all packets/data units requiring guaranteed service capability

(c) where the packet/data unit traffics are intercepted and processed before being forwarded onwards

(d) where the sending source/sources traffics are intercepted processed and forwarded onwards, and/or the packet/data unit traffics are only intercepted processed and forwarded onwards at the originating sending source/sources

(e) where the existing TCP/IP stack at sending source and/or receiving destination is/are modified to achieve the same end-to-end performance results between any source-destination nodes pair within the network, without requiring use of existing QoS/MPLS techniques nor requiring any of the switches/routers softwares within the network to be modified or contribute to achieving the end-to-end performance results nor requiring provision of unlimited bandwidths at each and every inter-node links within the network

(f) in which traffics in said network comprises mostly of TCP traffics, and other traffics types such as UDP/ICMP . . . etc do not exceed, or the applications generating other traffics types are arranged not to exceed, the whole available bandwidth of any of the inter-node link/s within the network at any time, where if other traffics types such as UDP/ICMP . . . do exceed the whole available bandwidth of any of the inter-node link/s within the network at any time only the source-destination nodes pair traffics traversing the thus affected inter-node link/s within the network would not necessarily be virtually congestion free guaranteed service capable during this time and/or all packets/data units sent from a source within the network arriving at a destination within the network would not necessarily all arrive ie packet/s do gets dropped due to network congestions

WHERE IN SAID METHOD:

TCP/IP stacks and/or applications at sending source decouples existing RTO timeout combined simultaneous rates decrease &

packet retransmission mechanism into separate rates decrease &

packet retransmission mechanism which now operates at different timeout values;

The rates decrease timeout is set to multiplicant*uncongested RTT of the source-destination pair of nodes within the network where multiplicant is always greater than 1 with a figure of 1.5 being common, or set to uncongested RTT of the source-destination pair of nodes plus a time period sufficient to accommodate the delays introduced by variable delays introduced by various components

The multiplicant chosen is such that the rates decrease timeout value is within defined required perception tolerance value, instead of equating to commonly used existing lowest minimum 1 sec dynamic RTO value calculations based on historical variable RTT values.

The packet retransmission Timeout period could remain as in existing dynamic RTO minimum 1 sec based on historical RTTs values, or instead just be set to a fixed defined time period such as eg 2.0/3.0/4.0*uncongested RTT of the particular source-destination pair of nodes within the network but always not less than rates decrease interval, or instead for all the packet retransmission timeout values of all source-destination pairs within the network to be set to a same common fixed defined time period such as eg 2.0/3.0/4.0*uncongested RTT of the most distant source-destination pair of nodes with the largest uncongested RTT within the network.

The time granularity of the TCP/IP stack and/or applications is modified to be of finer granularity such as 1 ms/10 ms . . . etc, instead of existing usual 200 ms or 500 ms . . . etc.

All TCP traffic flows with either source or destination not within the network will not be subject to decoupling, rates decrease timeout setting, packet retransmission timeout settings

2. Methods for virtually congestion free guaranteed service capable data communications network/Internet/Internet subsets/Proprietary Internet segment/WAN/LAN [hereinafter refers to as network] with any combinations/subsets of features (a) to (f)

(a) where all packets/data units sent from a source within the network arriving at a destination within the network all arrive without a single packet being dropped due to network congestions

(b) applies only to all packets/data units requiring guaranteed service capability

(c) where the packet/data unit traffics are intercepted and processed before being forwarded onwards

(d) where the sending source/sources traffics are intercepted processed and forwarded onwards, and/or the packet/data unit traffics are only intercepted processed and forwarded onwards at the originating sending source/sources

(e) where the existing TCP/IP stack at sending source and/or receiving destination is/are modified to achieve the same end-to-end performance results between any source-destination nodes pair within the network, without requiring use of existing QoS/MPLS techniques nor requiring any of the switches/routers softwares within the network to be modified or contribute to achieving the end-to-end performance results nor requiring provision of unlimited bandwidths at each and every inter-node links within the network

(f) in which traffics in said network comprises mostly of TCP traffics, and other traffics types such as UDP/ICMP . . . etc do not exceed, or the applications generating other traffics types are arranged not to exceed, the whole available bandwidth of any of the inter-node link/s within the network at any time, where if other traffics types such as UDP/ICMP . . . do exceed the whole available bandwidth of any of the inter-node link/s within the network at any time only the source-destination nodes pair traffics traversing the thus affected inter-node link/s within the network would not necessarily be virtually congestion free guaranteed service capable during this time and/or all packets/data units sent from a source within the network arriving at a destination within the network would not necessarily all arrive ie packet/s do gets dropped due to network congestions

AND/OR AS IN ACCORDANCE WITH claim 1, where in said method TCP stacks and/or applications at sending source and receiving source both decouple existing RTO timeout combined simultaneous rates decrease &

packet retransmission mechanism into separate rates decrease &

packet retransmission mechanism which now operates at different timeout values

3. A Claim as in accordance with claims 1 or 2, all TCP traffics senders source nodes, or only source nodes which send bulk of traffics, or all nodes within the network all implement these TCP stack modifications and/or all applications at these nodes implement these modifications

4. A claim as in accordance with any of the claims 1 or 2 or 3 above, where intercepted originating source packets/data units of the flow/s would first be held in a corresponding per flow queue buffers if arriving at faster rates than the rates decrement presently in effect for the particular flow or if there are already packets/data units buffered in the particular flow the arriving packets/data units will be appended to the end of the particular flow'"'"'s buffer queue, before being forwarded onwards:

however arriving packets/data units destined for local host TCP/IP stack and/or applications would always immediately be forwarded to local host TCP/IP stack and/or applications as they are not subject to rates decrease timeout mechanism.

5. A claim as in accordance with any of the claim 1-4 above, assuming all nodes within the network all set their rates decrease timeout to same common value of, multiplicant m*uncongested RTT of the most distant source to destination nodes pair within the network with the largest uncongested RTT, buffer size allocation setting at each node within the network should be set to minimum of, {(rates decrease timeout−

uncongested RTT)+rates decrease interval}*sum of all preceding incoming links'"'"' physical bandwidths at the node, equivalent amount of buffers to ensures no packet/data unit ever gets dropped in the network due to congestion;

an example being where assuming multiplicant m of 1.5, each of the nodes'"'"' buffer size allocation settings within the network should be set to equivalent of minimum 2.0*uncongested RTT of the most distant source to destination pair of nodes within the network with the largest uncongested RTT*sum of all preceding incoming links'"'"' physical bandwidths at the node, thus ensure no packets ever gets dropped in the network due to congestions.

6. Methods for virtually congestion free guaranteed service capable data communications network/Internet/Internet subsets/Proprietary Internet segment/WAN/LAN [hereinafter refers to as network] with any combinations/subsets of features (d) to (f)

(d) where the sending source/sources traffics are intercepted processed and forwarded onwards, and/or the packet/data unit traffics are only intercepted processed and forwarded onwards at the originating sending source/sources

(e) where the existing TCP/IP stack at sending source and/or receiving destination is/are modified to achieve the same end-to-end performance results between any source-destination nodes pair within the network, without requiring use of existing QoS/MPLS techniques nor requiring any of the switches/routers softwares within the network to be modified or contribute to achieving the end-to-end performance results nor requiring provision of unlimited bandwidths at each and every inter-node links within the network

(f) in which traffics in said network comprises mostly of TCP traffics, and other traffics types such as UDP/ICMP . . . etc do not exceed, or the applications generating other traffics types are arranged not to exceed, the whole available bandwidth of any of the inter-node link/s within the network at any time, where if other traffics types such as UDP/ICMP . . . do exceed the whole available bandwidth of any of the inter-node link/s within the network at any time only the source-destination nodes pair traffics traversing the thus affected inter-node link/s within the network would not necessarily be virtually congestion free guaranteed service capable during this time and/or all packets/data units sent from a source within the network arriving at a destination within the network would not necessarily all arrive ie packet/s do gets dropped due to network congestions AND/OR AS IN ACCORDANCE WITH ANY OF THE claims 1-5, said method implement a Monitor Software application instead of modifying the existing TCP/IP stack

the Software Monitor intercepts each &

every packets/data units coming from, and/or destined towards the the TCP stack/application process at the nodes

forward the intercepted packets onwards towards destination node or local host node'"'"'s TCP/IP stack, where the packets/data units are forwarded onwards towards destination node the packet'"'"'s sent time is recorded.

If after rates decrease timeout period since packet is sent and an acknowledgement for the packet from the destination node still has not been received back by the sending node, rates decrease is immediately effected to reduce the transmit rate of the particular TCP flow

The rates decrease timeout is set to multiplicant*uncongested RTT of the source-destination pair of nodes where multiplicant is always greater than 1 with a figure of 1.5 being common, or set to uncongested RTT of the source-destination pair of nodes plus a time period sufficient to accommodate the delays introduced by, variable delays introduced by various components the multiplicant chosen is such that the rates decrease timeout value is within required defined perception tolerance value.

the existing TCP/IP stacks at the nodes continue to function as usual, handling RTO simultaneous packets retransmission and multiplicative rates decrease, SACK/DUP ACK/fragmentations/fragments re-assembly completely unaffected by operations of Monitor Software

7. A claim as in accordance with claim 6, where in place of Monitor Software application, TCP Relay (TCP Splice) or TCP Proxy or Aggregate TCP forwarding (TCP Split) or Port Forwarding/IP forwarding or Firewalls were adapted to perform the functions as provided by Monitor Software application.

8. A claim as in accordance with any of the claims 6-7, where the Monitor Software or TCP Relay (TCP Splice) or TCP Proxy or Aggregate TCP forwarding (TCP Split) or Port Forwarding/IP forwarding or Firewalls may resides in user space or kernel space

9. A claim as in accordance with any of the claims 1-8, where the rates decrease is in form as defined % decrement in sender source present transmit rate'"'"'s multiplicative rate decrease

10. A claim as in accordance with any of the claims 1-9 above, where the sender source effects transmit rates decrease for the particular source-destination flow upon rates decrease timeout period after the time packet/data unit is sent without sending source having received an acknowledgement back from the receiving destination, in form of pause ie complete total halt in forwarding onwards packets/data units for the particular flow for a defined time interval.

11. A claim as in accordance with claim 10, where the defined pause time interval is set to be the same time period as the rates decrease timeout value of the particular source-destination nodes pair within the network

12. A claim as in accordance with any of the claims 1-11 above, where the rates decrease for the particular source-destination flow is effected in form of complete total pause of onwards forwarding to destination node for a defined pause interval but allowing a single or a defined number of packet/data unit to be forwarded immediately onwards during this interval, during this paused interval intercepted packets/data units forwarding and/or buffered packets/data units will be suspended except for a single packet or a defined number of packets/data units during this pause interval, and the intercepted packets/data units during this paused interval will be held appended to the end of packet/data unit queue buffer for the particular flow/s if a single or a defined number of packet/data unit has already been forwarded during this pause interval or if there is/are already packet/s in buffer queue for the particular flow.

13. A claim as in accordance with any of the claims 10-12 above, where a pause in progress which has not ceased/expired may be superceded/extended by subsequent rates decrease timeout event/s of the same particular flow

14. A claim as in accordance with any of the claim 12-13, whether a single or a defined number of packet/s had been forwarded during the pause/extended pause interval is referenced to the time of commencement the very 1^st initial pause, and/or referenced to commencement time of subsequent sequentially consecutively elapsed whole completed ‘

pause’

intervals blocks

15. A claim as in accordance with any of the claims 12-14, where buffered packets for the particular source-destination flow will be forwarded onwards immediately when pause ceases upon receiving an on time acknowledgement, instead of waiting until the ‘

pause’

interval has been completely counted down.

16. A claim as in accordance with any of the claims 1-15 above, where the packet/data unit SENT TIME is referenced to the time of actual completion of physical transmission of the entire packet/data unit onwards along the physical link onto the next neighbouring node

17. A claim as in accordance with any of the claims 1-16 above, where the UDP traffics sources are monitored in similar way as TCP traffics by Monitor Software installed at the nodes:

additional Sequence Number field to be added to the UDP flows'"'"' packets by the sending Monitor Software application, the sending Monitor Software needs only examine the elapsed time from forwarding onwards the particular UDP flow'"'"'s Sequence Number to the time an ‘

ACK’

for this Sequence Number is received back from the receiving destination Monitor Software. The Sender Monitor Software may repackage UDP packets in the same way as existing implementations of TCP over UPD/RTP etc, the receiving destination Monitor Software could un-package the ‘

packaged’

packets with Sequence Number added back into normal UDP packets without added Sequence Number to deliver to destination applications and send back an ‘

ACK’

to sender Monitor Software applications, similar to TCP ACK mechanism, but much simplified

OR

Without needing repackaging the UDP packets adding Sequence Number as above, the sender Monitor Software can create a separate TCP connection with the receiving Monitor Software for the particular UDP flow, and generate Sequence Number contained in a separate TCP packet, with no data payload, for each UDP packet/data unit forwarded

OR

as above, but just carry Seq No in the ‘

Option’

field of the encapsulating IP Protocol Header of the UDP flow, or perhaps even in data payload;

sending Monitor Software upon detecting rates decrease timeout may also further notify originating source application processes eg customised RTP applications etc to further coordinate sending transmit rate limits.

OR

May instead regularly at small interval and/or every certain number of UDP packets forwarded send TCP or UDP packet without data payload but with Sequence Number incorporated to the receiving Software Monitor for each UDP flows, which would not need to forward these to destination application processes, to ascertain any onset of congestions any of the link/links in the path between the source to destination nodes pairs and effect rates decrement to the particular corresponding UDP flow/s

18. A claim as in accordance with any of the claims 1-17 above, where instead of checking for rates decrease timeout to effect rates decrement since packet/data unit is sent without receiving corresponding acknowledgement for the particular packet/data unit, or instead of regularly at small interval and/or every certain number of UDP packets forwarded send TCP or UDP packet without data payload but with Sequence Number incorporated to the receiving destination Software Monitor which would not need to forward these to destination application processes to ascertain any onset of congestions any of the link/links in the path between the source and destination nodes pair, the modified TCP/IP stack and/or application and/or Software Monitor at the traffic source nodes may instead generate separate probe TCP connections and/or probe UDP connection for each source-destination flows initiated which at regular defined intervals send a single or a specified number of packets without data payload to their counterpart modified TCP/IP stack and/or application and/or Software Monitor residing at the receiving destination nodes:

upon a particular probe connection indicating congestion upon rate decrease timeout of the probe packet/data unit sent without receiving its corresponding acknowledgement back from receiving destination, the modified TCP/IP stack and/or application and/or Software Monitor at the traffic source nodes will now rate decrease the particular source-destination flow whose corresponding probe connection has now indicated congestion.

19. A claim as in accordance with any of the claims 1-18 above, where the modified TCP/IP stack and/or application and/or Software Monitor at the each of the nodes within the network may instead generate separate probe TCP connections and/or probe UDP connection for each neighbouring next hop nodes within the network . . . which at regular defined intervals send a single or a specified number of packets without data payload to their counterpart modified TCP/IP stack and/or application and/or Software Monitor residing at the immediately neighbouring next hop nodes:

upon a particular probe connection indicating congestion upon rate decrease timeout of the probe packet/data unit sent without receiving its corresponding acknowledgement back from receiving immediately neighbouring next hop node/s, the modified TCP/IP stack and/or application and/or Software Monitor at each of the nodes within the network will now rate decrease limit or effect complete total ‘

pause’

of forwarding onwards for all packet/data unit flows heading towards the particular next hop node whose corresponding probe connection has now indicated congestion;

all newly arriving packets/data units at the node destined for the particular congested node will now be added to the end of the node'"'"'s per flow packet buffer queue to be forwarded onwards when the ‘

pause/extended pause’

ceases;

Note here rate decrease timeout here between any two neighbouring nodes should be set to multiplicant*uncongested RTT between the two neighbouring nodes with multiplicant always greater than

20. A claim as in accordance with claim 19, where the rates decrease timeouts at each of the nodes within the network is set to a value such that the total sum of all rates decrease timeout value settings, of all the nodes along the most distant source-destination nodes pair or the longest hop source-destination nodes pair or the largest uncongested RTT source-destination nodes pair, is kept within required defined tolerance time period.

21. A claim as in accordance with any of the claims 1-20 above, where the modified TCP/IP stack and/or application and/or Software Monitor needs only be implemented or are only implemented on an Internet subset'"'"'s backbone nodes and/or ISP nodes and/or end user WAN/LAN nodes, without requiring all other nodes and/or individual end user nodes connected to the above Internet subset'"'"'s and/or ISP and/or end user WAN/LAN nodes to implement the modified TCP/IP stack and/or application and/or Software Monitor at their locations.

22. A claim as in accordance with any of the claim 1-21, where the required defined perception tolerance time period refers to real time critical audio-visual live communications perception tolerance time interval of the order of 100-300 msec.

23. A claim as in accordance with any of the claim 1-22, where the required defined perception tolerance time period refers to http webpage download perception tolerance time interval of the order of 1—

tens of seconds

24. A claim as in accordance with any of the claims 1-23 above, where:

traffic flows traversing the network from external networks/external Internet nodes, and from internal network nodes to external network nodes are treated by TCP/IP stack and/or applications and/or Monitor Software as lowest priority flows class

Modified TCP/IP stack and/or applications and/or Monitor Software may specify only originating source traffics from local host node'"'"'s source subnet/s or local host node'"'"'s IP address/es where the Modified TCP/IP stack and/or applications and/or Monitor Software resides are to be checked/processed for decoupled rates decrease timeouts and/or packet retransmission timeouts

TCP data packets bound for external internet, eg to http;

//google.com, will thus not be monitored for rates decrease timeout, unless user specifically include subnets/IP address of Google among those to be checked/processed.

All traffics originating within the network accessing remote applications at other external nodes could also be made to do so only via a gateway proxy located at the outer border nodes of the network acting as proxy TCP/IP process and/or UDP proxy process for all outgoing traffics to external nodes, all incoming traffics from all external nodes could all be first gathered by a proxy TCP/IP process and/or UDP proxy process located at the outer border nodes which then retransmit the data packets onto recipients within the network;

the proxy gateway or the proxy process gathering incoming external data packets/data units at the outer border nodes would thus be within the network'"'"'s control for settings of decoupled rates decrease timeout and/or packet retransmission timeout mechanisms.

Where necessary, the routing tables/mechanisms of nodes in the network could be configured to ensure all internally originating traffics gets routed to all nodes within the network therein only via links within the network itself;

all traffics within the network including incoming external Internet/WAN/LAN traffics already entered therein could hence be processed same as internal originating traffics, coming under internal network routing mechanism therein.

The Modified TCP/IP stack and/or applications and/or Monitor Software residing at the nodes within the network do not need to intercept/monitor internode links'"'"' traffics if the link is from a neighbouring node within the same network links'"'"' traffics from neighbouring nodes external to the network or even other low priority internal traffics classes may be assigned to be of lowest priority class and optionally not forwarded onwards by modified TCP/IP stack and/or applications and/or Monitor Software ie instead of rates decrease limiting a particular TCP flow when a particular high priority TCP flow rates decrease timedout without receiving an acknowledgemnent, the modified TCP/IP stack and/or applications and/or Monitor Software may instead optionally rate decrease limit the external traffics and/or low priority traffics classes which also traverses the same bottleneck link with corresponding required forwarding rate decrease and could be made first to be dropped by the modified TCP/IP stack and/or applications and/or Monitor Software if the system buffers provided ever starts getting overfilled.

The modified TCP/IP stack and/or applications and/or Monitor Software, or independently the switches/routers at the nodes within the network could assign lowest forwarding priority/lowest links'"'"' priority to external neighbouring links eg Priority-List command in Cisco IoS, ensures internal originating source traffics destined to internal destinations gets assigned a guaranteed big portion of the outgoing links'"'"' bandwidths at the nodes plus highest forwarding priority (eg custom-queue . . . etc commands in Cisco IoS), similarly ensures various classes of traffics (eg external to internal, internal to external, external to external, UDP, ICMP) could be assigned their guaranteed minimum relative portions of the forwarding onwards links'"'"' bandwidths at the nodes and/or relative forwarding priority settings ensuring at a minimum no complete starvations for the various classes of traffics.

25. A claim as in accordance with any of the claims 1-24, where all intercepted packets/data units from the network destined for local host TCP/IP stack and/or applications and/or Monitor Software are not subject to rates decrease control, and would simply be forwarded onwards to local host TCP/IP stack and/or applications and/or Monitor Software without further processing and regardless of any per flow TCP'"'"'s ‘

pause’

states.

26. Methods for virtually congestion free guaranteed service capable data communications network/Internet/Internet subsets/Proprietary Internet segment/WAN/LAN [hereinafter refers to as network] with any combinations/subsets of features (d) to (f)

(d) where the sending source/sources traffics are intercepted processed and forwarded onwards, and/or the packet/data unit traffics are only intercepted processed and forwarded onwards at the originating sending source/sources

(e) where the existing TCP/IP stack at sending source and/or receiving destination is/are modified to achieve the same end-to-end performance results between any source-destination nodes pair within the network, without requiring use of existing QoS/MPLS techniques nor requiring any of the switches/routers softwares within the network to be modified or contribute to achieving the end-to-end performance results nor requiring provision of unlimited bandwidths at each and every inter-node links within the network

(f) in which traffics in said network comprises mostly of TCP traffics, and other traffics types such as UDP/ICMP . . . etc do not exceed, or the applications generating other traffics types are arranged not to exceed, the whole available bandwidth of any of the inter-node link/s within the network at any time, where if other traffics types such as UDP/ICMP . . . do exceed the whole available bandwidth of any of the inter-node link/s within the network at any time only the source-destination nodes pair traffics traversing the thus affected inter-node link/s within the network would not necessarily be virtually congestion free guaranteed service capable during this time and/or all packets/data units sent from a source within the network arriving at a destination within the network would not necessarily all arrive ie packet/s do gets dropped due to network congestions

AND/OR AS IN ACCORDANCE WITH ANY OF THE claims 1-25, here a simplified example implementation of packets/data units intercept process and forwarding, without needing the TCP/IP stack to be modified and without needing to track any of the per flow forwarding onwards rates and without needing to calculate/impose packets forwarding rates limiting on the particular flow/s, needing only to ‘

pause’

ie revert to idle for a defined interval of time eg usually set to same as rates decrease timeout value, but allowing minimum 1 packet or a specified number of packets of the particular ‘

paused’

flow/s to be forwarded during this ‘

paused’

interval, upon every rates decrease timeout events of sent packet/data unit without receiving its corresponding acknowledgement back, is presented here;

here the existing TCP/IP stack continues to do the sending/receiving/RTO calculations from RTTs/simultaneous packets retransmission &

multiplicative rate decrease/SACK/Delayed ACK/DUP ACKs/Fragmentations &

Re-assembly . . . etc completely as usual

The rates decrease timeout is set to multiplicant*uncongested RTT of the source-destination pair of nodes within the network where multiplicant is always greater than 1 with a figure of 1.5 being common, or set to uncongested RTT of the source-destination pair of nodes plus a time period sufficient to accommodate the delays introduced by variable delays introduced by various components.

The multiplicant chosen is such that the rates decrease timeout value is within defined required perception tolerance value, instead of equating to commonly used existing lowest minimum 1 sec dynamic RTO value calculations based on historical variable RTT values

for simplicity all per flows'"'"' rates decrease timeout interval to trigger ‘

pause’

if acknowledgement has not been received for the sent packet during this interval and ‘

pause’

interval for all per flows ie time to remain in ‘

pause’

upon a packet/data unit Acknowledgement timeout events, could all set to the same uncongested RTT*eg 1.5 of the most distant source-destination nodes pair in the guaranteed service capable network with largest uncongested RTT

Intercept all the packets/data units coming from the TCP/IP stack eg via NDIS shim NDIS register hooking methods, optional but preferable for all intercepted packets/data units to be processed for checksum/CRC, and if in error then the packet/data unit could simply be forwarded onwards without any processing by Monitor Software or even just discarded without being forwarded onwards.

Initial TCP connection establishment via SYN/ACK packets are monitored to create/initialise the particular per TCP flow'"'"'s Seq No/ACK Timeout Events list structures within Monitor Software, likewise monitoring their terminations via SYN &

ACK packets to remove above Seq No/ACK Timeout Eventslist structures, however if a TCP packet is detected without their earlier TCP connection establishment phase SYN/ACK packets being detected the Monitor Software could also create corresponding Seq No/ACK Timeout Events list structures for the particular TCP flow;

UDP connections are established evidenced by the very 1^st such packet/data unit intercepted.

When the packet/data unit is subsequently forwarded onwards feeding back into NDIS towards the Adapters interfacing transmissions media (Ethernet, Serial, Token Ring . . . etc), the particular packet'"'"'s TIME SENT is noted together with the Sequence Number of the TCP packet, and on a maintained Events list is created an entry identified by the packet'"'"'s unique Seq No together with the timestamp ACK Timeout ie TIME SENT+rates decrease timeout interval, for each per flow TCP

When a particular TCP flow'"'"'s packets/data units from TCP were intercepted, and the particular TCP flow is presently ‘

paused’

the intercepted a packets/data units will be placed in particular TCP flow'"'"'s FIFO queue buffer, ELSE it will be forwarded onwards immediately if there are no packet/data unit buffered in the per flow TCP queue &

corresponding Seq No/ACK Timeout entry made on the particular TCP flow'"'"'s Events list structures. If there are packet/s buffered in the per flow TCP queue then it will be appended to the end of the per flow TCP buffer queue. When the particular TCP flow'"'"'s ‘

pause’

has ceased after ‘

pause’

interval, the particular TCP flow'"'"'s buffered packets/data units would now be forwarded onwards &

their corresponding Seq No-ACK Timeout entered on the maintained structures

all intercepted ICMPs, and/or all unmonitored flows'"'"' packets from the TCP such as ‘

external’

TCP flows with source or destinations outside the network, and/or time specifically excluded critical TCP flows, which should not be subject to rates decrease control, could simply be forwarded onwards without further processing and regardless of any other particular per flow'"'"'s ‘

pause’

states

When a packet/data unit from TCP/IP stack is intercepted the packet/data unit header could first be examined to see if it'"'"'s a TCP format packet or UDP format, if its source address is to be monitored which local host addresses/subnets usually are, if its destination is within the range of subnets/IP addresses of the guaranteed service capable network of which subnets/IP addresses are defined by user inputs, if it is explicitly excluded from monitoring as user may specify certain destinations or source, or source-destination pair IP addresses/subnets are to be excluded from monitoring even though within the network, or certain source ports or destination ports or source-destination ports pairs are not to be monitored.

Monitors the maintained Events lists of packets'"'"' Seq No-ACK Timeout entries for each of the per flows, if after the ACK Timeout the particular packet'"'"'s/data unit'"'"'s acknowledgement still has not been received back from the remote destination receiver TCP/IP stack process then the particular flow will now be ‘

paused’

for a ‘

pause’

interval period of time, AND the particular expired Seq No-ACK Timeout entry/entries would now be removed from the per flow maintained Events list ie the particular packet'"'"'s/data unit'"'"'s expected ACK is already late;

any subsequent ACK Timeout of the entries in the per flow maintained Events list will now start the ‘

pause’ and

the pause interval countdown anew, if the present existing ‘

pause’

in progress if any has not yet ceased

It is noted that rates decrease Timeout interval &

pause interval are usually identical set to the same rates decrease Timeout interval value, but pause interval may be set differently from rates decrease timeout value to suit particular network configurations environments or for finer performance enhancement purposes.

Any arriving on time ACKs for this particular flow, but not late ACKs as the packet'"'"'s/data unit'"'"'s entry would have already ACK Timeout &

removed already, would now cause all entries in this particular flow'"'"'s Events list entries with Seq No<

arriving ACK'"'"'s Seq No to be immediately removed thus making possible termination of the ‘

pause’

/‘

extended pause’

.

upon any arriving on time ACK, an ACK here would only be on time if its original packet had been forwarded onwards after the SENT TIME of the ACK timedout packet/data unit which causes the latest ‘

pause’

/‘

extended pause’

interval, the present ‘

pause’

/‘

extended pause’

in progress could optionally be immediately terminated without waiting for the complete pause interval to be fully counted down, and all packets'"'"'/data units'"'"' entries in the Events list with Seq No<

arriving ACK Seq No will now be removed hence those entries removed will now not cause any further ‘

pause’

/‘

extended pause

Instead of the above described setting of pause interval which determines each ‘

pause’

length to be identical to rates decrese Timeout value, which would ensure the rates decrease Timeout interval'"'"'s worth of already in-flight forwarded onwards packets before congestion is detected at the Monitor Software, would be cleared away at interveneing node/s'"'"' buffers during this ‘

pause’

of same rates decrease Timeout period, various different values of pause interval may be selected eg small values of pause interval than rates decrease Timeout would give finer grain controls on amount of time the flow is ‘

paused’

helping to improve throughputs of the network/bottleneck links

The Monitor Software additionally intercept all the flow'"'"'s ACKs packets from the network destined for the local host TCP/IP stack, &

removes all entries in the per flow'"'"'s Table/Events list with Seq No<

arriving ACK'"'"'s Seq No ie those entries removed have now been ACKed on time, hence their removal from the Table/Events list.

to simplify processing, arriving RTO packets ie retransmitted by TCP/IP stack of UNACKed packets after usual minimum lowest ceiling default elapsed time of 1 second commonly in existing RFCs, from local host TCP/IP stack would be recognised by Monitor Software in that there will already be an existing entry on the Table/events list with same Seq No as the arriving RTO packet or the RTO packet'"'"'s Seq No fall within the present range of latest highest Seq No &

earliest lowest Seq No on the Events list, will simply be IGNORED &

forwarded onwards without further processing and without being updated on the Table/events list entries;

RTO packets in this guaranteed service network would be very very rare indeed almost invariable only caused by physical transmissions or software errors, and any congestion in the networks would be detected by subsequent sent normal TCP packets/data units which would be monitored for ACK Timeouts. Likewise this mechanism IGNORING of packets with Seq No already within the present range of latest highest Seq No &

earliest lowest Seq No on the per flow'"'"'s Events list would similarly takes care of arriving fragmented packets from local host TCP/IP stack ie each of these packets'"'"' headers has the same Seq No with fragments flag set &

offset values, with only the 1^st such fragments needs be processed &

entry on Events list with this Seq No created &

subsequent fragments with same Seq No will IGNORED &

simply forwarded onwards without further processing.

for arriving fragmented ACKs eg when the ACK arrives piggy-backed on some data packets only the very 1^st fragment'"'"'s Seq No will be used to actually remove all entries on Events list with Seq No<

this 1^st fragments Seq No. Selective Acknowledgement'"'"'s SACK Seq No and similarly for DUP ACK could for simplicity here also be allowed to just simply remove all entries on Events list with Seq No<

arriving SACK'"'"'s Seq No, instead of removing only Selectively Acknowledged specified Seq No entries since subsequently sent forwarded onwards normal packets/data units from local host to remote host receiver would resume the network/bottleneck links ACK Timeout congestions detections process.

Time wrap-around/Mid Night rollover scenarios could conveniently be catered for by referencing all times relative to eg 0 hours at 1^st Jan. 2000, there are already implemented in existing TCP/IP implementation techniques to cope with Seq No wrap-around.

The above mentioned ‘

pause’

/‘

extended pause’

algorithm, source-destination subnets/IP addresses inputs for flows to be monitored, per TCP flows source-destination subnets pairs input field values of rates decrease Timeout which is equivalent to fixing TCP/IP stack'"'"'s RTO into two separate processes of rates decrement Timeout &

packet retransmission Timeout regardless of dynamic RTT historical values, rates decrease Interval/packet transmissions Delay before the complete packet exits onwards onto the physical link medium . . . etc could also be instead implemented/modified directly into the local host TCP/IP stack.

The ‘

pause’

/‘

extended pause’

technique here could indeed simplifies, or even totally replaces, existing RFC'"'"'s TCP simultaneous stack multiplicative rates decrease mechanism upon RTO, and enhances faster &

better congestions recovery/avoidance/preventions or even enables virtually congestion free guaranteed service capability, on the Internet/subsets of Internet/WAN/LAN than existing simulataneous multiplicative rates decrease upon RTO mechanism;

Various other different ‘

pause’

/‘

extended pause’

algorithms could also be devised for particular situations/environments.

27. A method as in accordance with any of the claims 1-26 above, where when sending very large volume non time-critical traffics to a specific destination anywhere on the Internet, knowing only the uncongested RTT value to the destination thus setting rates decrease value for the source and destination flow of m multiplicant*uncongested RTT, and with all switches/routers nodes along the path all have buffers equivalent of minimum {(rates decrease interval−

uncongested RTT between the source and destination)+rates decrease interval}*sum of all preceding incoming linbks'"'"' physical bandwidths, the TCP/IP stack and/or applications and/or Monitor Software could enable such large transfers to have no impact or very minimal impact on all other Internet traffics that traverses any of the same link/links along the path of this particular source-destination flow.

31. A claim as in accordance with any of the claims 27-30 above, the central nodes from each of two such star topologies guaranteed service capable networks described in the preceding paragraph could be linked together:

the bandwidth of the link between the two central nodes would need only be the lesser of the sum of all guaranteed service applications'"'"' required bandwidths, in either of the star topology networks, a bigger guaranteed service capable network is formed;

Note here each of the central nodes need not examine their own respective outer edge node links'"'"' traffics for data packet header'"'"'s ToS priority precedence field, nor does the e0 guaranteed service traffics data packet header need be marked as priority precedence data type.

This bigger combined network, could further be combined with another star topology network with the central node of this star topology network linked to either of the two central nodes (previously) of the bigger combined network, it is preferable to link with the central node (previously) of the bigger combined network which previously whose star topology network has the greater sum of all guaranteed service applications'"'"' required bandwidths, the bandwidth of this link then needs only be the lesser of the sums of all guaranteed service applications'"'"' required bandwidths of the now combined bigger combined network and this star topology network, and in which case the bandwidth of the link between the two previous central nodes of the bigger combined network need not be upgraded

Any of the nodes and/or central nodes in this star topology networks, and combined networks, could be linked/connected to any number of external nodes of the usual existing type on the Internet/WAN/LAN, hence the star topology networks and combined networks could be part of the whole Internet/WAN/LAN yet the guaranteed service capability among all nodes in the star topology networks need not be affected, as long as all the internode links connecting the nodes in the star topology networks and combined networks are each already assigned higher port/interface priority at each of the nodes therein than the incoming external Internet/WAN/LAN links at the nodes;

Incoming Internet/WAN/LAN links at the nodes are assigned lowest priority (and outgoing Internet links as well, ie full duplex in both directions) of all the link types so that all traffics originating within the star topology networks and combined networks all have precedence over incoming external Internet/WAN/LAN traffics.

Where necessary, the routing mechanisms of nodes in the star topology networks and combined networks could be configured to ensure guaranteed service traffics gets routed to all nodes therein only via links within the star topology networks and the combined networks

36. A method where the TCP/IP stack is modified so that:

simultaneous RTO rates decrease and packet retransmission upon RTO timeout events takes the form of complete ‘

pause’

in packet/data units forwarding for the particular rate decreased timedout source-destination TCP flow, but allowing 1, or a defined number of packets/data units of the particular TCP flow to be forwarded onwards for each complete pause interval during the ‘

pause/extended pause’

period

simultaneous RTO rate decrease and packet retransmission interval for a source-destination nodes pair where acknowledgement for the corresponding packet/data unit sent has still not been received back from destination receiving TCP/IP stack, before ‘

pause’

is effected, is set to be;

(A) uncongested RTT between the source and destination nodes pair in the network*multiplicant which is always greater than 1, or uncongested RTT between source and destination nodes pair PLUS an interval sufficient to delays introduced by variable delays introduced by various components

OR

(B) uncongested RTT between the most distant source-destination nodes pair in the network with the largest uncongested RTT*multiplicant which is always greater than 1, or uncongested RTT between the most distant source-destination nodes pair in the network with the largest uncongested RTT the most distant source-destination nodes pair in the network with the largest uncongested RTT PLUS an interval sufficient to accommodate delays introduced by variable delays introduced by various components

OR

(C) Derived dynamically from historical RTT values, according to some devised algorithm, eg*multiplicant which always greater than 1, or PLUS an interval sufficient to delays introduced by variable delays introduced by various components

OR

(D) Any user supplied values, eg 200 ms for audio-visual perception tolerance or eg 4 seconds for http webpage download perception tolerance . . . etc

where with RTO interval values in (A) or (B) or (C) or (D) above capped within perception tolerance bounds of real time audio-visual eg 200 ms, the network performance of claims 1 and 2 are accomplished.

Note the above described TCP/IP modification of ‘

pause’

only but allowing 1 or a defined number of packets/data units to be forwarded during a whole complete pause interval or each successive complete pause interval, instead of or in place of existing coupled simultaneous RTO rates decrease and packet retransmission, could enhance faster &

better congestions recovery/avoidance/preventions or even enables virtually congestion free guaranteed service capability, on the Internet/subsets of Internet/WAN/LAN than existing TCP/IP simulataneous multiplicative rates decrease upon RTO mechanism;

note also the existing TCP/IP stack'"'"'s coupled simultaneous RTO rates decrease and packet retransmission could be decoupled into separate processes with different rates decrease timeout and packet retransmission timeout values.

Note also the preceding paragraph'"'"'s TCP/IP modifications may be implemented incrementally by initial small minority of users and may not necessarily have significant adverse performance effects for the modified ‘

pause’

TCP adopters, further the packets/data units sent using the modified ‘

pause’

TCP/IP will rarely ever be dropped by the switches/routers along the route, and can be fine tuned/made to not ever have a packet/data unit be dropped

37. A method as in accordance with claim 36, where the TCP/IP stack is further modified so that the existing simultaneous rates decrease timeout and packet retransmission timeout, known as RTO timeout, are decoupled into separate processes with different rates decrease timeout and packet retransmission timeout values

38. Methods for virtually congestion free guaranteed service capable data communications network/Internet/Internet subsets/Proprietary Internet segment/WAN/LAN [hereinafter refers to as network] with any combinations/subsets of features (a) to (c)

(a) where all packets/data units sent from a source within the network arriving at a destination within the network all arrive without a single packet being dropped due to network congestions

(b) applies only to all packets/data units requiring guaranteed service capability

(c) where the packet/data unit traffics are intercepted and processed before being forwarded onwards

WHERE IN SAID METHOD further incorporating the TCP/IP stack modifications of claims 36 or 37.

28. Methods for virtually congestion free guaranteed service capable data communications network/Internet/Internet subsets/Proprietary Internet segment/WAN/LAN [hereinafter refers to as network] with any combinations/subsets of features (a) to (c)

(a) where all packets/data units sent from a source within the network arriving at a destination within the network all arrive without a single packet being dropped due to network congestions

(b) applies only to all packets/data units requiring guaranteed service capability

(c) where the packet/data unit traffics are intercepted and processed before being forwarded onwards

WHERE IN SAID METHOD (as illustrated in FIGS. 1-4 of Drawings):

At each of the nodes all data packets sources requiring guaranteed service are arranged to transmit the data packets into the network through link/links which has/have highest precedence which could or example be implemented by assigning it highest port priority of the switch/hub/bridge, or highest Interface priority in a router, over any other links including inter-nodes links where applicable eg by issuing IoS Priority-list commands in Cisco products.

The links are such that the forwarding path inter-node link'"'"'s bandwidth is sufficient to accept above mentioned priority port link/links data packets total input rate, or the forwarding path inter-node link'"'"'s bandwidth is equal to or exceeds the sum of the bandwidths of above mentioned priority port link'"'"'s/links'"'"'s bandwidths at the node PLUS such priority port link/links data packets total input rate or sum of bandwidths of such priority port link/links from all neighbouring nodes

The inter-nodes links are such that each of the inter-nodes link bandwidths are sufficient to accept above mentioned priority port link/links data packets total input rate PLUS such priority port link/links data packets total input rate from all neighbouring nodes

Within the network, Video streams could be received at the subscriber'"'"'s full dial up bandwidth whereas at present on the Internet a subscriber who established dial up connection of 48 KBS could only receive streams substantially below the full dial up bandwidth at best typically 0-30 KBS continuously varying over time due to technicalities of delivering over Internet;

video streams in such network could thus be of higher image resolutions/viewing quality, and be of continuous uninterrupted viewing

such a network could be implemented completely using only simple port/interface priority switches, without necessarily requiring existing QoS implementations, no streaming data packets will be congestion buffer delayed or dropped or substantially arriving out of sequence.

30. A claim as in accordance with any of the claim 28-29 above, where in addition to highest priority guaranteed service e0 input link there is implemented at the nodes lowest priority e1 best effort input link (as illustrated in FIGS. 23-28 of Drawings):

best effort applications at a node may only have access to another node within the network, or access the external Internet, via Internet proxy gateway located at the local central node or located at the node itself where the local central node (or the node itself has external Internet link/links, and the e1 input link'"'"'s best effort applications may not communicate directly with any of the other nodes within the star topology network and combined star topology networks except via the Internet proxy gateway at its local central node or at the node itself;

such communications would occur over external Internet routes without traversing the star topology network, the same applies as when e0 guaranteed service PCs at a node requires Internet access, ie via local central nodes'"'"' Internet proxy gateways only though e0 guaranteed service PCs may also communicate directly with any other nodes within the star topology network and combined network.

Any external Internet originated traffics enters the star topology network and combined networks would be made to enter only via lowest priority links at a central node or the node itself, and are destined only to the local central node'"'"'s outer edge nodes.

35. A claim as in accordance with any of the claims 28-30, in Star Topology Network in illustration &

methods described in the description body, with the above proxy IP addresses/addresses sub-range/addresses patterns usages adhered to by all applications within the network &

the central node of the Star Topology Network implementing the above described proxy servers/proxy ports/proxy queues, guaranteed service capability among all nodes would be achieved requiring all the outernodes'"'"' links into the central node to be of minimum sufficient bandwidths as the sum of all guaranteed service applications'"'"' required bandwidths at their respective node'"'"'s locations optionally with an extra amount of bandwidth for best effort TCP traffics. Further the central node would be able to ensure the guaranteed service traffics classes are priority forwarded onto the inter-central-node links connecting two such Star Topology Networks without encountering congestion buffer delays, and also to assign guaranteed minimum bandwidths for the various traffics classes of incoming links onto specific particular outgoing links, to aggregate rate limit the various traffics classes or various links etc;

this would enable very easy large combinations of such Star Topology Networks on Internet/Internet subsets/WAN/LAN to be formed satisfying traffics/graphs analysis minimum internode links'"'"' required bandwidths for guaranteed service capability among all nodes within the combinations of Star Topology Networks and/or other topology combinations.

29. Methods for virtually congestion free guaranteed service capable data communications network/Internet/Internet subsets/Proprietary Internet segment/WAN/LAN [hereinafter refers to as network] with any combinations/subsets of features (a) to (d)

(a) where all packets/data units sent from a source within the network arriving at a destination within the network all arrive without a single packet being dropped due to network congestions

(b) applies only to all packets/data units requiring guaranteed service capability

(c) where the packet/data unit traffics are intercepted and processed before being forwarded onwards

(d) where the sending source/sources traffics are intercepted processed and forwarded onwards, and/or the packet/data unit traffics are only intercepted processed and forwarded onwards at the originating sending source/sources

WHERE IN SAID METHOD (as illustrated in FIGS. 17-22 of Drawings) within a star topology network, with as many nodes on the outer edges linked to a central node:

each of the outer nodes'"'"' links to the central node here are each of equal or greater bandwidths than the sum of all time critical guaranteed service applications'"'"' required bandwidth in highest priority e0 input link of each of the outer nodes, implementing guaranteed service to all nodes'"'"' locations of the star topology network would simply literally be to add an extra highest port-priority e0 input link to each outer node, and by attaching/relocating all time critical applications requiring guaranteed service capability to e0 input link

It is also a requirement that any inter-node links be assigned second highest port/interface priority at any of the nodes including the central node, e0 input links;

all nodes here has only e0 guaranteed service traffics input links, and does not have any e1 best effort traffics input links.

32. Methods for virtually congestion free guaranteed service capable data communications network/Internet/Internet subsets/Proprietary Internet segment/WAN/LAN [hereinafter refers to as network] with any combinations/subsets of features (a) to (c)

(a) where all packets/data units sent from a source within the network arriving at a destination within the network all arrive without a single packet being dropped due to network congestions

(b) applies only to all packets/data units requiring guaranteed service capability

(c) where the packet/data unit traffics are intercepted and processed before being forwarded onwards

WHERE IN SAID METHOD (as illustrated in FIGS. 5-10 in Drawings) within in a linear bus topology network:

to ensure 100% availability guaranteed service among all the applications requiring guaranteed service between all the nodes here would require each nodes to rate limit its combined e0 &

e1 input rates into the node'"'"'s inter-node forwarding links such that there will be sufficient bandwidth capacity to cater for e0+e1 input rates and all other nodes'"'"' required guaranteed service bandwidth capacity along the node'"'"'s inter-node forwarding links as calculated/derived under traffics/graphs analysis.

33. Methods for virtually congestion free guaranteed service capable data communications network/Internet/Internet subsets/Proprietary Internet segment/WAN/LAN [hereinafter refers to as network] with any combinations/subsets of features (a) to (b)

(a) where all packets/data units sent from a source within the network arriving at a destination within the network all arrive without a single packet being dropped due to network congestions

(b) applies only to all packets/data units requiring guaranteed service capability results nor requiring provision of unlimited bandwidths at each and every inter-node links

WHERE IN SAID METHOD the virtually congestion free guaranteed service network . . . comprise of an ISP node and the ISP node'"'"'s end user subscribers nodes, where:

The ISP configuration here assume a very common deployments whereby access servers/modem banks links carrying traffics from subscribers are fed into a shared Ethernet, preferably fast Ethernet configuration set up, with a router also attached to the shared Ethernet which connects via eg T1/leased lines etc to the external Internet cloud

to enable guaranteed service capability (same as PSTN quality telephony/videoconference/Movie Streams . . . etc) among all subscribers or subsets of subscribers of an ISP would basically require the ISP to assign the access servers clusters/modem banks links into the Ethernet/switched Ethernet segment to have highest interface/port priority over the internet feed router'"'"'s/routers'"'"' link/links into the shared switched Ethernet (within the highest interface/port priority access servers there could be assigned further ‘

pecking order’

priorities among them, eg assigning interface/port priorities 6-8 (out of the usual priority categories of 1-8 assuming 8 being the highest priority) to be ‘

highest priority’

group. Likewise all other servers'"'"' links into the shared switched Ethernet segment would have lower assigned interface/port priorities. The Ethernet/shared switched Ethernet segment link/links carrying traffics to the subscribers into the access servers/modem banks/switch routers would be assigned highest interface/port priority at the access servers/modem banks/switch routers over any other links carrying traffics back to the subscribers.

To restrict such service to subset of subscribers the ISP would only need to assign new dial-in numbers/access servers to the subsets of subscribers, &

only assign such subsets of access servers/modem banks highest interface/port priority into the shared Ethernet/switched Ethernet segment

if need be such guaranteed service subscribers/subset of subscribers could all be configured to access specific particular servers proxies which are assigned higher interface/port priority than other similar servers, or such intra-subscribers http/ftp/news . . . etc traffics could be made to have higher processing priority within the servers'"'"' over all others.

the ftp/http . . . etc servers'"'"' input links into the common shared Ethernet/shared switched Ethernet segment at the node/ISP could be made to be assigned lower interface/port priority whereas the internet feed router'"'"'s link into the common shared Ethernet/shared switched Ethernet segment be assigned higher interface/port priority and the access server/servers'"'"' input link into the common shared Ethernet/shared switched Ethernet segment to have highest interface/port priority of them all;

thus the incoming UDP guaranteed service data packets from the internet feed router (or another subscriber'"'"'s access server) to the access server will always have a straight through immediate priority use of the complete full bandwidth of the end user subscriber'"'"'s link, regardless of the additional other TCP/http . . . etc traffic volumes destined for the same end user subscriber'"'"'s link from the TCP/http . . . etc proxy servers which will be forwarded to the end user subscriber'"'"'s link only when there are spare unused idle bandwidth available after servicing the UDP guaranteed service data packets.

The ISP should have sufficient switching processing capacity and bandwidths in the infrastructure to forward all such inter-subscribers guaranteed service traffics without causing incoming and outgoing traffics congestions at the access servers, provided the bandwidth of the shared Ethernet segment is sufficient to cope with the sum of all such subscribers incoming bandwidths or the ISP could deploy multiple switched Ethernet instead

Alternatively or in conjunction, the Internet feed router and the access servers could also implement Access List Control so that incoming data packets with such proxy IP addresses will be queued internally to a lower priority queue than the other incoming data packets which are priority transmitted onto the common shared Ethernet segment.

Various queues of various priorities could be implemented based on the various traffics classes'"'"' proxy IP addresses/addresses ranges/addresses subnets or their patterns eg xxx.xxx.000.xxx or patterns xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx;

000 . . . etc;

this allows priority forwarding of guaranteed service classes, WFQ minimum guaranteed bandwidths for each traffics classes, aggregate traffics classes rate limiting, per forwarding link'"'"'s specific priority algorithms etc.

34. Methods for virtually congestion free guaranteed service capable data communications network/Internet/Internet subsets/Proprietary Internet segment/WAN/LAN [hereinafter refers to as network] with any combinations/subsets of features (a) to (c)

(a) where all packets/data units sent from a source within the network arriving at a destination within the network all arrive without a single packet being dropped due to network congestions

(b) applies only to all packets/data units requiring guaranteed service capability

(c) where the packet/data unit traffics are intercepted and processed before being forwarded onwards

WHERE IN SAID METHOD to give priority to certain applications, eg site backup, between two locations in any of the network/set/subsets which requires guaranteed service capability, the switches/routers along the links path could be dynamically made to assign highest interface priority for the all the particular interfaces/links in the path traversed over any other, this also enhanced the throughput rates/speed of the site backup completions:

This dynamic priority links configurations could also be used for eg real time “

Live”

events transmissions/broadcasts/multicasts from the venue onto various cities'"'"' ISPs then into the multitude of the ISPs subscribers or onto certain nodes'"'"' of the Broadband transmissions network then into the multitude of the DSL homes at the geographic locations o the nodes, for the duration of the event.

For the site backup purpose, the backup throughput rates/speed could further be improved by factors magnitude, ensuring the source TCP transmits at certain constant rate ie bandwidth throttle to a constant rate so that there would be no occurrence of multiplicative transmission rate decrease due to ACK time-out.