Tunneling Compressing and Multiplexing (TCM) Traffic Flows. Reference Model

Tunneling, Compressing and Multiplexing (TCM) is a method for improving the bandwidth utilization of network segments that carry multiple small-packet flows in parallel sharing a common path. The method combines different protocols for header compression, multiplexing, and tunneling over a network path for the purpose of reducing the bandwidth consumption. The amount of packets per second can be reduced at the same time. This document describes the TCM framework and the different options which can be used for each of the three layers (header compression, multiplexing and tunneling).