This paper provides proofs of the rate stability, Harris recurrence, and
epsilon-optimality of CSMA algorithms where the backoff parameter of each node
is based on its backlog. These algorithms require only local information and
are easy to implement.
The setup is a network of wireless nodes with a fixed conflict graph that
identifies pairs of nodes whose simultaneous transmissions conflict. The paper
studies two algorithms. The first algorithm schedules transmissions to keep up
with given arrival rates of packets. The second algorithm controls the arrivals
in addition to the scheduling and attempts to maximize the sum of the utilities
of the flows of packets at the different nodes. For the first algorithm, the
paper proves rate stability for strictly feasible arrival rates and also Harris
recurrence of the queues. For the second algorithm, the paper proves the
epsilon-optimality. Both algorithms operate with strictly local information in
the case of decreasing step sizes, and operate with the additional information
of the number of nodes in the network in the case of constant step size
