Previous | Next --- Slide 43 of 45
Back to Lecture Thumbnails
Elias

I am really, deeply curious. How would a bufferless network possibly work? That doesn't seem possible, based on all the designs we've discussed (and how a system exposed to random inputs behaves - what if you had a source sending to a target at a rate far in excess of what the system can handle, so it saturates (or worse, over saturates)?).

grose

@Elias: I think usually when networks get more traffic than they can handle, they just start dropping things or refusing connections

Elias

@grose: I guess that makes sense. I think I had this vision of a bufferless network which never drops anything - magic!

BryceToTheCore

I think that the medium of "Air" is such a network. Communications are dropped by the humans talking to each other or through to little volume, rather than an over saturation of the network.

That said, I suppose "Air" can be over saturated when too many humans are in the same room and are using the same patch of air.