Multiple-access protocols and time-constrained communication

  • Authors:
  • James F. Kurose;Mischa Schwartz;Yechiam Yemini

  • Affiliations:
  • Columbia Univ., New York, NY;Columbia Univ., New York, NY;Columbia Univ., New York, NY

  • Venue:
  • ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR)
  • Year:
  • 1984

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Abstract

During the past ten years, the field of multiple-accesscommunication has developed into a major area of both practical andtheoretical interest within the field of computer communications.The multiple-access problem arises from the necessity of sharing asingle communication channel among a community of distributedusers. The distributed algorithm used by the stations to share thechannel is known as the multiple-access protocol. In this paper weexamine the multiple-access problem and various approaches to itsresolution.In this survey we first define the multiple-access problem andthen present the underlying issues and difficulties in achievingmultiple-access communication. A taxonomy for multiple-accessprotocols is then developed in order to characterize commonapproaches and to provide a framework within which these protocolscan be compared and contrasted. Different proposed protocols arethen described and discussed, and aspects of their performance areexamined. The use of multiple-access protocols for "real- time" or"time-constrained" communication applications, such as voicetransmission, is examined next. Issues in time-constrainedcommunication are identified, and recent work in the design oftime-constrained multiple-access protocols is surveyed.