Design and Performance Evaluation of Broadcast Algorithms for Time-Constrained Data Retrieval

We refer "time-constrained services” to those requests that have to be replied to within a certain client-expected time duration. If the answer cannot reach the client within this expected time, the value of the information may seriously degrade or even become useless. On-demand channels may not be able to handle all time-constrained services without degrading the performance. How to handle these services in broadcast channels becomes crucial to balance the load of wireless systems. In this paper, we study this problem and find the minimum number of broadcast channels required for such a task. Also, we propose solutions for this problem when the available channels are insufficient. Our performance result reveals that only a moderate number of channels is required to promote these time-constrained services.