There is an article in EETimes by Fay Arjomandi of Vancouver-based Mobidia that may shake up the fans of the 10 year old stupid network principle. The stupid network essay calls for intelligence to reside at the edge of the network, rendering IP networks to plumbing pipes – with carriers ignorant of the application and services being transported.
The Arjomandi article suggests that what is really needed is a sharing of network intelligence and joint management of network efficiency practices. The article suggests that devices should be active, intelligent network elements within the network.
Such an approach would enable end-user devices to share the responsibilities of network management for uplinks while core network nodes manage the downlinks.
This will require devices to be service-, network- and policy-aware. Such awareness will provide a much more comprehensive, efficient and wireless-friendly way to negotiate QoS with the network; enforce network policies; and queue, prioritize and manage traffic right at the source, based on its type, before sending data over precious network resources. This will eliminate the need for extra transactions over the wireless link for QoS parameter exchange. The device becomes a self-managing element within the network that manages uplink traffic.
Interesting approach. Still, I suspect there are many IP network purists who would oppose any network-based means to manage demands on network capacity.