Minimizing access delay in CRMA/ATM interworking

Cell delay variation (CDV) has to be minimized in the access network for the ATM traffic, specially, if it is isochronous traffic, and if it is traversing over a wide area network. This paper considers the interworking of cyclic reservation multiple access (CRMA) LAN/MAN with a wide area ATM network and proposes a simple modification in the CRMA protocol which minimizes the access delay for the ATM stations existing on the CRMA network. The author allows the ATM stations to send cells at a higher priority such that the CRMA back-pressure is not applied to the ATM traffic. It makes it appear to the ATM stations that the cycle length is of fixed size, and thus greatly reduces the variability of the access delay for them.