Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer

1. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer • Deal with broadcast networks and their protocols. • The key issue is how to determine who gets to use the channel when there is competition for it. • Broadcast channels are sometimes referred to as multiaccess channels or random access channels. • The protocols used to determine who gets next on a multiaccess channel belong to a sublayer of the data link layer called the MAC (Medium Access Control) sublayer.

2. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.1 The Channel Allocation Problem 4.1.1 Static Channel Allocation in LANs and MANs FDM: Frequency Division Multiplexing TDM: Time Division Multiplexing Suitable for fixed number of users with constant traffic Disadvantage: when the number of users is large and continuously varying, or the traffic is bursty, FDM presents some problems.

3. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.1 The Channel Allocation Problem 4.1.1 Static Channel Allocation in LANs and MANs A simple queuing theory calculation For a channel of capacity C bps, with an arrival rate of l frames/sec, each frame having a length drawn from an exponential probablity density function with mean 1/m bits/frame, the mean time delay Now let us divide the single channel up into N independent subchannels, each with capacity C/N bps. The mean input rate on each of the subchannel will now be l/N. Recomputing T, we get

4. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.1 The Channel Allocation Problem 4.1.2 Dynamic Channel Allocation in LANs and MANs Five key assumptions: 1. Station Model. The model consists of N independent stations, each with a program or user that generates frames for transmission. The probability of a frame being generated in an interval of length Dt is lDt, where l is a constant (the arrival rate of new frames). Once a frame has been generated, the station is blocked and does nothing until the frame has been successfully transmitted.

5. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.1 The Channel Allocation Problem 4.1.2 Dynamic Channel Allocation in LANs and MANs Five key assumptions: 2. Single Channel Assumption. A single channel is available for all communication. All stations can transmit on it and all can receive from it. As far as the hardware is concerned, all stations are equivalent, although some protocol software may assign priorities to them.

6. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.1 The Channel Allocation Problem 4.1.2 Dynamic Channel Allocation in LANs and MANs Five key assumptions: 3. Collision Assumption. If two frames are transmitted simultaneously, they overlap in time and the resulting signal is garbled. This event is called a collision. All stations can detect collisions. A collided frame must be transmitted again alter. There are no errors other than those generated by collisions.

7. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.1 The Channel Allocation Problem 4.1.2 Dynamic Channel Allocation in LANs and MANs Five key assumptions: 4a. Continuous Time. Frame transmission can begin at any instant. There is no master clock dividing time into discrete intervals. 4b. Slotted Time. Time is divided into discrete intervals (slots). Frame transmissions always begin at the start of a slot. A slot may contain 0, 1, or more frames, corresponding to an idle slot, a successful transmission, or a collision, respectively.

8. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.1 The Channel Allocation Problem 4.1.2 Dynamic Channel Allocation in LANs and MANs Five key assumptions: 5a. Carrier Sense. Stations can tell if the channel is in use before trying to use it. If the channel is sensed as busy, no station will attempt to use it until it goes idle. 5b. No Carrier Sense. Stations cannot sense the channel before trying to use it. They just go ahead and transmit. Only later can they determine whether or not the transmission was successful.

9. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.1 ALOHA Pure ALOHA the first multiple-access protocol: a method for sharing a transmission channel by enabling the transmitter to access the channel at random times ALOHA of U. of Hawaii Computer Center 413MHz at 9600bps 407MHz at 9600bps

10. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.1 ALOHA Frames are transmitted at completely arbitrary times. Pure ALOHA

11. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.1 ALOHA Pure ALOHA • protocol • nodes transmit on a common channel • transmit frame of fixed length • when two transmissions overlap, they garble each other (collision) • the central node acknowledges the correct frames it receives • when a node does not get an acknowledgment within a specific timeout, it assumes that its frame collided • when a frame collides, the transmitting node schedules a • retransmission after a random delay

12. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.1 ALOHA nodes S collision? new frame channel G No S old frame Yes S: the mean number of new frames generated by the infinite population G: the mean number of transmission attempts (new and old combined) where P0 is the probability that a frame does not suffer a collision

13. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.1 ALOHA pure ALOHA and slotted ALOHA pure ALOHA time Nodes can starting transmitting at any time. slotted ALOHA slot time Nodes must start their transmissions at the beginning of a time slot.

14. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.1 ALOHA vulnerability period pure ALOHA slotted ALOHA packet packet Other nodes that are ready at this period will result in collision.

15. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.1 ALOHA The probability that k frames are generated during a given frame time is given by the Poisson distribution: So the probability of zero frames in a slot is just e-G. In an interval two time slots long, the mean number of frames generated is 2G. Therefore, the distribution is: The probability of zero frames is e-2G.

16. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.1 ALOHA Using S=GP0, we get For pure ALOHA: S=Ge-2G For slotted ALOHA: S=Ge-G To find the maximum value:

17. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.1 ALOHA

18. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.1 ALOHA In slotted ALOHA, the best we can hope for is 37% success, 37% slots empty, and 26% collisions. Operating at higher values of G reduces the number of empties but increases the number of collisions exponentially. Consider the transmission of a test frame: success: e-G, failure: 1-e-G, success for k attempts: Expected number of transmissions: As a result of the exponential dependence of E upon G, small increases in the channel load can drastically reduce its performance.

19. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.2 Carrier Sense Multiple Access Protocols With slotted ALOHA the best channel utilization that can be achieved is 1/e. This is hardly surprising, since with stations transmitting at will, without paying attention to what other stations are doing, there are bound to be many collisions. In local area networks, however, it is possible for stations to detect what other stations are doing, and adapt their behavior accordingly. Protocols in which stations listen for a carrier (i.e. a transmission) and act accordingly are called carrier sense protocols.

20. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.2 Carrier Sense Multiple Access Protocols 1-persistent CSMA: the station transmits with a probability of 1 whenever it finds the channel idle, if the channel is busy, it waits until it becomes idle non-persistent CSMA: the station transmits if the channel is idle, if the channel is busy, it waits a random time and tries again p-persistent CSMA (slotted): the station transmits with a probability of p whenever it finds the channel idle, with a probability of 1-p, it waits until the next slot. If another station has begun transmitting, it acts as if there had been a collision. It waits a random time and starts again.

21. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.2 Carrier Sense Multiple Access Protocols

22. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.2 Carrier Sense Multiple Access Protocols CSMA with collision detection (CSMA/CD) Abort a transmission as soon as they detect a collision. Quickly terminating damaged frames saves time and bandwidth. After a station detects a collision, it aborts its transmission, waits a random period of time, and then tries again, assuming that no other station has started transmitting in the meantime.

23. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.2 Carrier Sense Multiple Access Protocols A conceptual model for CSMA/CD (How long should each slot be?)

24. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.2 Carrier Sense Multiple Access Protocols maximum collision detection time A B 1.A starts transmitting t=0 3. A reaches B 2.B starts transmitting 5.B reaches A PROP 4.B detects collision, transmits JAM, stops 2PROP 6.A detects collision, transmits JAM, stops The maximum collision detection time is equal to twice the maximum end-to-end propagation delay.

25. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.2 Carrier Sense Multiple Access Protocols For this reason we will model the contention interval as a slotted ALOHA system with slot width 2t (t is the end to end delay). On a 1-km long coaxial cable, t5msec. It is important to realize that collision detection is an analog process. The station’s hardware must listen to the cable while it is transmitting. The signal encoding must allow collisions to be detected (e.g., a collision of two 0-volt signals may well be impossible to detect). For this reason, special encoding is commonly used.

26. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.3 Collision-Free Protocols Although collisions do not occur with CSMA/CD once a station has unambiguously seized the channel, they can still occur during the contention period. These collisions adversely affect the system performance, especially when the cable is long and the frames are short. As very long, high bandwidth fiber optic networks come into use, the combination of large t and short frames will become an increasingly serious problem. In the protocols to be described, we make the assumption that there are N stations, each with a unique address from 0 to N-1 “wired” into it.

27. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.3 Collision-Free Protocols A bit-map protocol Protocols like this in which the desire to transmit is broadcast before the actual transmission are called reservation protocols.

28. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.3 Collision-Free Protocols Performance of bit-map protocol Assuming contention slot: 1 slot, data slot: d slots Low-numbered stations must wait on the average 1.5N slots and high-numbered stations must wait on the average 0.5N slots before starting to transmit, the mean for all stations is N slots. Channel efficiency at low load: d/(N+d) Channel efficiency at high load: Nd/(N+Nd)=d/(d+1)

29. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.3 Collision-Free Protocols Binary Countdown A dash indicates silence. Station’s binary address

30. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.3 Collision-Free Protocols Binary Countdown The channel efficiency of this method is d/(d+lnN). If, however, the frame format has been cleverly chosen so that the sender’s address is the first field in the frame, even these lnN bits are not wasted, and the efficiency is 100%. Variations: Use virtual station numbers. The successful station being circularly permuted after each transmission. Stations C H D A G B E F Priority 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 if D transmits Priority 7 6 0 5 4 3 2 1 others are promoted

31. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.4 Limited-Contention Protocols Two important performance measures for channel acquisition strategies: delay at low load and channel efficiency at high load channel delay efficiency Light load Heavy load good bad Contention protocol Contention-free protocol good bad

32. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.4 Limited-Contention Protocols Obviously, it would be nice if we could combine the best properties of the contention and collision-free protocols, arriving at a new protocol that used contention at low loads to provide low delay, but used a collision-free technique at high load to provide good channel efficiency. Such protocols will be called limited contention protocols.

33. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.4 Limited-Contention Protocols Up until now the only contention protocols we have studied have been symmetric, that is, each station attempts to acquire the channel with some probability p, will all stations using the same p. Performance of the symmetric case: suppose that k stations are contending for channel access, each has a probability p of transmitting during each slot The probability that some station successfully acquire the channel is kp(1-p)k-1 Maximum occurs at p=1/k with Pr[success with optimal p]=

34. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.4 Limited-Contentionn Protocols As soon as the number of stations reaches even 5, the probability has dropped close to it asymptotic value of 1/e.

35. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.4 Limited-Contention Protocols Limited contention protocols decrease the amount of competition by dividing the stations up into (not necessarily disjoint) groups. Only the members of group 0 are permitted to compete for slot 0. If one of then succeeds, it acquires the channel and transmits its frame. If the slot lies fallow or if there is a collision, the members of group 1 contend for slot 1, etc. by making an appropriate division of stations into groups, the amount of contention for each slot can be reduced, thus operating each slot near the left end of Fig. 4-8.

36. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.4 Limited-Contention Protocols The adaptive tree walk protocol Slot 0 Depth first search for all ready stations Slot 1 (if collision)

37. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.4 Limited-Contention Protocols When the load on the system is heavy, it is hardly worth the effort to dedicate slot 0 to node 1, because that makes sense only in the unlikely event that precisely one station has a frame to send. Similarly, one could argue that nodes 2 and 3 should be skipped as well for the same reason. Put in more general terms, at what level in the tree should the search begin?

38. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.4 Limited-Contention Protocols Assume that each station has a good estimate of the number of ready stations, q, for example, from monitoring recent traffic. Assume the root (node 1) is at level 0. Each node at level i has a fraction 2-i of the stations below it. If the q ready stations are uniformly distributed, the expected number of them below a specific node at level i is just 2-iq. Intuitively, we would expect the optimal level to begin searching the tree as the one at which the mean number of contending stations per slot is 1, that is, the level at which 2-iq=1. Solving this equation we find that i=log2q.

39. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.4 Limited-Contention Protocols Improvements: For example, consider the case of stations G and H being the only ones waiting to transmit. Probe node 1: collision Probe node 2: idle Probe node 6: idle Probe G Probe H Node 3 and node 7 can be skipped. Why?

40. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.5 Wavelength Division Multiple Access Protocols

41. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.5 Wavelength Division Multiple Access Protocols M: number of slots in the control channel n+1: number of slots in the data channel, where n of these are for data and the last one is used by the station to report on its status On both channels, the sequence of slots repeats endlessly, with slot 0 being marked in a special way so latecomers can detect it. All channels are synchronized by a single global clock.

42. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.5 Wavelength Division Multiple Access Protocols The protocol supports three classes of traffic: (1) constant data rate connection-oriented traffic (2) variable data rate connection-oriented traffic (3) datagram traffic For the two connection-oriented protocols, the idea is that for A to communicate with B, it must first insert a CONNECTION REQUEST frame in a free slot on B’s control channel. If B accepts, communication can take place on A’s data channel.

43. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.5 Wavelength Division Multiple Access Protocols Each station has two transmitters and two receivers, as follows: 1. A fixed-wavelength receiver for listening to its own control channel. 2. A tunable transmitter for sending on other station’s control channel. 3. A fixed-wavelength transmitter for outputting data frames. 4. A tunable receiver for selecting a data transmitter to listen to. In other words, every station listens to its own control channel for incoming requests but has to tune to the transmitter’s wavelength to get the data.

44. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.6 Wireless LAN Protocols The hidden terminal problem When A transmits to B and C also transmits to B simultaneously, the frames will be collided at B. Since A and C can not see each other.

45. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.6 Wireless LAN Protocols The exposed terminal problem When C hears B’s transmission intended for A, it may falsely conclude that it can not send to D now.

46. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.6 Wireless LAN Protocols MACA (Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance) MACA: basis for IEEE802.11 wireless LAN standard The basic idea behind it is for the sender to simulate the receiver into outputting a short frame, so stations nearby can detect this transmission and avoid transmitting themselves fir the during of upcoming (large) data frame.

47. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.6 Wireless LAN Protocols MACA (Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance) RTS (30 bytes) and CTS contains the data length that will eventually follow.

48. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.6 Wireless LAN Protocols MACA (Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance) Any station hearing the RTS is clearly close to A and must remain silent long enough for the CTS to be transmitted back to A without conflict. Any station hearing the CTS is clearly close to B and must remain silent during the upcoming data transmission, whose length it can tell by examining the CTS frame.

49. Chapter 4 The Medium Access Sublayer 4.2 Multiple Access Protocols 4.2.6 Wireless LAN Protocols MACA (Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance) Despite these precautions, collisions can still occur. For example, B and C could both send RTS frames to A at the same time. In the event of a collision, an unsuccessful transmitter (I.e., one that does not hear a CTS within the expected time interval) waits a random amount of time and tries again later. The algorithm used is binary exponential backoff.