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Abstract:
Current Internet transports conflate transport semantics
with endpoint addressing and flow regulation,
creating roadblocks to Internet evolution
that we propose to address with a new layering model.
Factoring endpoint addressing (port numbers)
into a separate {\em Endpoint Layer} permits
incremental rollout of new or improved transports at OS or application level,
enables transport-oblivious firewall/NAT traversal,
improves transport negotiation efficiency,
and simplifies endpoint address space administration.
Factoring congestion control into a separate {\em Flow Layer}
cleanly enables in-path performance optimizations
such as on satellite or wireless links,
permits incremental rollout
of new congestion control schemes within administrative domains,
frees congestion control evolution from
the yoke of ``TCP-friendliness,''
and facilitates multihoming and multipath communication.
Though this architecture is ambitious,
existing protocols can act as
starting points for the new layers---UDP or UDP-Lite for the Endpoint Layer,
and Congestion Manager or DCCP for the Flow Layer---providing both immediate
deployability
and a sound basis for long-term evolution.
