Empirical Testing of the Infinite Source Poisson Data Traffic Model

The infinite source Poisson model is a fluid queue approximation of network data transmission that assumes that sources begin constant rate transmissions of data at Poisson time points for random lengths of time. This model has been a popular one as analysts attempt to provide explantations for observed features in telecommunications data such as self-similarity, long range dependence and heavy tails. We survey some features of this model in cases where transmission length distributions have (a) tails so heavy that means are infinite, (b) heavy tails with finite mean and infinite variance and (c) finite variance.