Properties

The buffering protocol is based on the assumption that nodes maintain their promises, and that they do not lie about when they expect to get back to a network. This is a reasonable assumption because there is no incentive for a node to lie. A lie will only hurt the liar since an incorrect time estimate will lead to degraded performance. A value larger than the actual switching time causes an extra delay in getting packets, while a smaller value results in packet loss. Therefore, the nodes can be expected to stay honest and transmit the right switching period.

The above protocol also ensures transparent switching: applications using a switching card do not have to know its state. Packets sent to the switching card are all received, though with some extra delay, as long as everybody is honest about their switching period.