Policing congestion response in an internetwork using re-feedback

This paper introduces a novel feedback arrangement, termed re-feedback. It ensures metrics in data headers such as time to live and congestion notification will arrive at each relay carrying a truthful prediction of the remainder of their path. We propose mechanisms at the network edge that ensure the dominant selfish strategy of both network domains and end-points will be to set these headers honestly and to respond correctly to path congestion and delay, despite conflicting interests. Although these mechanisms influence incentives, they don't involve tampering with end-user pricing. We describe a TCP rate policer as a specific example of this new capability. We show it can be generalised to police various qualities of service. We also sketch how a limited form of re-feedback could be deployed incrementally around unmodified routers without changing IP.