ConEx Concepts and Use Cases

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are facing problems where congestion prevents full utilization of the path between sender and receiver at today's "broadband" speeds. ISPs desire to control the congestion, which often appears to be caused by a small number of users consuming a large amount of bandwidth. Building out more capacity along all of the path to handle this congestion can be expensive; and network operators have sought other ways to manage congestion. The current mechanisms all suffer from difficulty measuring the congestion (as distinguished from the total traffic). The ConEx Working Group is designing a mechanism to make congestion along any path visible at the Internet Layer. This document discusses this mechanism.