Comparative Study of Protocols of the Transport Layer for Multimedia Applications

P. Kassapidis, C. Vassilakis, M. Nikolaidou, P. Georgiadis, Gr. Votsis and N. Pronios
Hellenic Informatics Conference, Patra 1993 (in Greek).

Abstract:
The forthcoming use of multimedia applications will require powerful computers and high performance networks. While great progress has been made to the physical layer of networks, the upper software layers of the OSI reference model have not kept up pace with them. This paper presents the demands imposed by multimedia applications on the underlying networks and their mapping to transport layer services, that protocols implementing it must provide. Four well-known transport layer protocols are briefly presented (TCP, TP4, VMTP, HSTP/XTP). The mechanisms employed by each one of those are studied and their suitability for demanding multimedia environments are evaluated. We conclude that much more effort needs to be made on the transport layer protocols so that high performance network architectures will be available to fullfill the diverse requirements of tomorrow's multimedia applications.

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