Analysis of a MAC protocol to guarantee QoS for ATM over satellite

In this paper we analyse the performance of a medium access control (MAC) protocol which is particularly suited for a scenario with a high number of terminals with very bursty unspecified bit rate (UBR) traffic (e.g. web browsing). In order to guarantee the required quality of service (QoS) requested by the user for all ATM service classes, priorities between the service classes must be implemented. Hence prioritised queueing of requests is proposed. The adaptive MAC protocol was designed to allow statistical multiplexing of ATM traffic over the air interface, especially for independent and spatially distributed terminals. It is shown that the potential user population which can be served is considerably increased by statistically multiplexing bursty traffic over the air interface.