Internet - Draft Delay Limits and Policies for TCMTF

This document contains recommendations to be taken into account when using methods which optimize bandwidth utilization through compression, multiplexing, and tunneling traffic flows (TCMTF) over a network path. Different multiplexing policies and implementation issues which are service and link specific are discussed. Additionally, this document describes policies which can be used for detecting, classifying, and choosing the network flows suitable for optimization by using TCMTF. Finally, recommendations of maximum tolerable delays to be added by optimization techniques are reported. Recommendations are presented only for network services for which such bandwidth optimization techniques are applicable (i.e., services with low payload to header size ratio, which will also be denoted as "small-packet flows").