Multiple priority CSMA-type multichannel local area network

We introduce a new network access protocol for a CSMA-type multichannel local area network (MLAN). This new protocol has the capability of providing different network access priority among the various applications. From the earlier research, it has been shown that the CSMA-type MLAN is superior to a single channel of equal network bandwidth. On the basis of the developed MLAN architecture, we construct a new network access protocol to provide multiple transmission priorities for various applications e.g., text, voice, video, image, etc. This protocol is called multiple-priority multichannel local area network (MP-MLAN). The data transmission of MP-MLAN is collision-free, and we can find the throughput characteristics of MP-MLAN are higher and more stable than the conventional CSMA/CD or multichannel CSMA/CD network from the analysis results. A queueing analysis model for representing the MP-MLAN protocol is established and simulation results are also provided to evaluate the performance of this network.