Performance comparison of four MAC protocols for integrated MANs

Abstract

The performance of four different MAC (medi access control) sublayer protocols proposed for applications in extended local area networks and/or metropolitan area network (MANs) integrating different types of traffic are compared. The four protocols are Expressnet, Fasnet, QPSX (or distributed queue dual bus-DQDB), and FDDI-II (fiber distributed data interface II). Performance results in terms of average and variance of packet access delay, channel utilization, and percentage of packets lost due to lack of buffers are obtained through simulation for variable geographic coverage and data rate, assuming a mix of voice and data traffic.<>