Characterizing Internet load as a non-regular multiplex of TCP streams

A commonly accepted traffic model for a large population of Internet users consists of a multiplex of Poisson-arriving heavy-tailed streams with the same constant rate (M/G//spl infin/). We show that even though such a regular model provides an accurate description of long-range dependence, the marginal distribution variance is underestimated, resulting in erroneous calculation of overflow probability in network simulations. On the other hand, we show that the traffic variability due to the marginal distribution variance can be the limiting factor for performance in the gigabit-speed next-generation Internet, rather than the long-range dependence features present in today's traffic.