A performance study of multiple access control protocols for wireless multimedia services

The multiple access control (MAC) problem in a wireless network has intrigued researchers for years. For a broadband wireless multimedia network such as wireless ATM, an effective MAC protocol is very much desired because efficient allocation of channel bandwidth is imperative in accommodating a large user population with satisfactory quality of service. Indeed, MAC protocols for a wireless ATM network, in which user traffic requirements are highly heterogeneous (classified into CBR, VBR, and ABR), are even more intricate to design. Considerable research efforts expended in tackling the problem have resulted in a myriad of MAC protocols. While each protocol is individually shown to be effective by the respective designers, it is unclear how these different protocols compare against each other on a unified basis. We quantitatively compare seven previously proposed TDMA-based MAC protocols for integrated wireless data and voice services. We first propose a taxonomy of TDMA-based protocols, from which we carefully select seven protocols, namely SCAMA, DTDMA/VR, DTDMA/PR, D4RUMA, DPRMA, DSA++, and PRMA/DA, such that they are devised based on rather orthogonal design philosophies. The objective of our comparison is to highlight the merits and demerits of different protocol designs.published_or_final_versio

A multiple access scheme for multimedia traffic in wireless ATM

This paper proposes a multiple access scheme for the forthcoming wireless ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) system. Such ATM compatible wireless systems are motivated by the rapidly increasing demand for wireless extensions to broadband networks, which are expected to support mixed broadband services including Constant Bit Rate (CBR), Variable Bit Rate (VBR), and Available Bit Rate (ABR) traffic. Since these different traffics have very different performance requirements, the multiple access scheme design is very challenging. In this paper, we propose a multiple access scheme called Dynamic Time Division Multiple Access with Piggybacked Reservation (DTDMA/PR), attempting to achieve higher statistical multiplexing efficiency in the mixed VBR/CBR / ABR traffic scenario. The basic idea is to exploit two levels of reservation. The first level deals with the isochronous nature of CBR and VBR traffic and the bursty nature of ABR traffic by using the ALOHA reservation procedure. The second level exploits the piggybacked reservation approach to cope with the dynamic feature of VBR traffic in order to increase the multiplexing efficiency. An analytical model is also developed in this paper and verified by simulation. Numerical examples are given to gain some insight into the protocol itself. © J.C. Baltzer AG, Science Publishers.link_to_subscribed_fulltex