This paper proposes a compromise solution to the net neutrality problem, which is one of the key issues in the development process of new Internet applications and services. The solution is to use a QoS architecture, one that would provide service differentiation to support current and future demands, but one that would not require or even allow any user input. This way, ISPs (Internet service providers) will be refrained from introducing any explicit differentiation or prioritization, therefore, networks shall remain neutral while, still, providing necessary service differentiation. The FAN (flow-aware networking) concept, presented in the paper, may be a good compromise to handle the net neutrality problem as it assures implicit service differentiation based solely on the traffic characteristics without any possibility of undesirable interference by ISPs or Internet users.

New concepts of the congestion control mechanisms in Flow-Aware Networks (FAN), which improve network performance and servicing of streaming flows, are proposed. The paper describes the congestion control mechanisms as an enhancement proposed for the Measurement Based Admission Control (MBAC) block in FAN. Three algorithms, i.e., RAEF (Remove Active Elastic Flows), RBAEF (Remove and Block Active Elastic Flows) and EFM (Enhanced Flushing Mechanism) focus on partial or total cleaning of the contents of Protected Flow List (PFL) in the congestion state. The mechanisms are discussed and performance evaluation results are presented.

Internet routing processes currently rely on protocols that were developed more than ten years ago. Today, we have far more computational power and memory at our disposal, and it is possible to take advantage of these resources in order to greatly increase the efficiency of routing protocols. Therefore, we propose a new approach to routing packets in IP-based networks: Flow-Aware Multi-Topology Adaptive Routing, or FAMTAR. FAMTAR combines flow-aware traffic management and an adaptive routing mechanism. A standard routing protocol is used to find the optimal path between two nodes in a network. FAMTAR makes it possible to automatically create additional paths when such demand occurs. Between two endpoints, the transmission may follow n different paths, where n is limited only by the topology of the network. In this letter, we compare FAMTAR to a classic routing protocol and demonstrate FAMTAR's superiority.

A new variation of the Flow-Aware Networking (FAN) concept is presented in the paper. The proposed solution is based on the Approximate Fair Dropping algorithm and called by us Approximate Flow-Aware Networking (AFAN). The simplicity of the new proposal is assured as a result of using only two FIFO queues for the scheduled packets. The impact of congestion control mechanisms proposed for Flow-Aware Networks on packet transmission in the overloaded network for the AFAN is also presented. The analysis shows how to choose the values of the parameters which decide of proper transmission characteristics of the network. The results of the research are compared with those obtained for the other two FAN architectures, with the PFQ (Priority Fair Queuing) and with the PDRR (Priority Deficit Round Robin) scheduling algorithms. The advantages and weaknesses of the new proposal are described and analyzed.