A medium access control protocol for wireless ATM LAN based on polling

Activity continues in the investigation of indoor wireless networks based on ATM. These local area networks (LANs), are required to co-exist with future fibre-optic based broadband communications networks and users will expect similar service capabilities in the wireless environment as is offered in the wired networks. In dealing with the medium access challenge faced in the implementation of these networks, a modified polling (disposable token) protocol is proposed as another candidate multiple access scheme for an ATM based wireless LAN. Simulation results are presented for a voice/data scenario, and features of the scheme include time of expiry (TOE) based service discipline, with polling priority given to the time critical (multimedia) portion of the packet data. The priority scheme was found to achieve considerable improvement in system performance, measured in terms of call/message delay and loss.