A high performance MAC protocol for broadcast LANs with bursty traffic

An new medium access control protocol for broadcast LANs, which is capable of achieving a high performance under bursty traffic conditions, is introduced. According to the proposed protocol, the network stations are separated into groups. All the groups are granted permission to transmit in a round-robin fashion. The main objective of the grouping algorithm is to have exactly one ready station in each group. In this way, idle slots and collisions are minimized and a nearly optimal throughput-delay performance is achieved. The grouping of stations is dynamically modified at each time slot according to the network feedback information. Due to the dynamic nature of the grouping algorithm, the protocol is capable of being adapted to the sharp changes of the stations' traffic.