IP networks only offer best-effort service to all kinds of traffic. This means that IP tries to deliver each packet as quickly as possible, but makes no service guarantees. However, as the diversity of applications increase, this simple model with no service guarantees cannot satisfy all of them. For example, novel interactive applications such as Internet telephony, video conferencing, or networked games expect some performance guarantees to operate right. The growing importance of these recent applications with stringent constraints behooves network service providers to differentiate among various types of traffic and provide a new range of service models able to accommodate heterogeneous application requirements and user expectations.
Timelines: simplifying the programming of lag compensation for the next generation of networked games