Middleboxes: Controllable media firewalls

Internet technology is promised to provide the broadband multi-service future. Today this technology can not provide basic quality guarantees for the services rendered. Generally over-provisioning of the bandwidth is used to get the services to an acceptable level but this is costly and can not work in areas where high aggregation rates are necessary (such as the local loop). Today IP (router) technology lacks mechanisms for high-granularity access control, per-user accounting and QoS policing. We believe that for a service provider to deploy billable services these issues need to be resolved. Only if access to the service is controlled and when the network provides information about the usage of the network elements, then next generation services in the Telecommunication Industry, like Voice Over IP (VoIP) and Multimedia Conferencing can be rolled out profitably. In this paper we present a technology that can address these needs. We employ controllable firewalls that have the ability...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2002
• Where: BELL
• Authors: Paul Sijben, Willem van Willigenburg, Michel de Boer, Sietse van der Gaast
• Keywords: Basic Quality Guarantees, BELL 2002, Broadband Multi-service Future, Technology