A fluid-flow analytical model of networked multimedia TFRC traffic sources

With the advent of multimedia traffic over the Internet several TCP-friendly protocols have been developed to improve UDP with congestion control mechanisms. The most promising TCP-friendly protocol is the TFRC. This paper addresses a novel analytical model for TFRC traffic sources. The model is able to capture TFRC behavior and its dependence on the network congestion state. Moreover, the model includes the TFRC loss probability estimation algorithm performed by the receiver. In order to keep the model manageable, whatever the number of sources and network routers, a fluid-flow approach is used.