Modelling of multimedia MAC protocols on WDM optical networks

Conventional medium access control (MAC) protocols perform quite well for the traffic types they have been designed for, but poorly for other traffic streams with different characteristics. But, the emerging multimedia applications require that the MAC protocol should perform equally well for all types of traffic characteristics. We propose an integrated MAC protocol (termed the multimedia medium access control protocol (multimedia-MAC)) which integrates different MAC protocols into a hybrid protocol to efficiently accommodate various types of multimedia traffic streams with different characteristics and QoS demands. We have applied our multimedia-MAC design approach to wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) based optical network. We have developed a mathematical framework for the analysis and performance evaluation of our multimedia-MAC protocol which involves a queueing model with vacation.