On the performance analysis of EPRMA protocol with Markov chain model

The extended packet reservation multiple access (EPRMA) is a multiple access protocol developed from the original PRMA technique. Multi-bit-rate reservation is supported for broadband services. An innovative method utilizing a Markov chain model is used to conduct a precise performance analysis of the EPRMA for voice traffic. The average number of terminals in the reservation state is found under the condition that a constant number of terminals are in the burst period. From that, performance measures, such as channel throughput, packet dropping probability and average access delay are derived. The results match those of the computer simulation. For voice sources with slow speech activity detection and four carriers with 20 time slots per frame shared by a group of users, 42 simultaneous conversations per carrier can be supported by the EPRMA scheme with a packet dropping probability of less than 1%.