Status sense multiple-access (S/sup 2/MA) communication

A new contention-based multi-access protocol, named status sense multiple access (S/sup 2/MA), is introduced. S/sup 2/MA is synchronous TDMA in its framing but it possesses many features of random access. The approach of S/sup 2/MA is geared towards integrating heterogeneous classes of customers over a common broadcast channel. The performance of this protocol with two classes of customers, such as voice and data, is analyzed. Unlike fixed and some moveable-boundary approaches of integrating voice and data, here no slot is wasted, except for possible collision, as long as there is a demand for the slot from either of the two classes. Therefore, the channel utilization efficiency can be very high.<
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