ATM and Aloha-common performance models

Abstract

The classical Aloha model is a starting point for studying the throughput of an ATM link. We extend the Aloha model to c-channel Aloha, where up to c simultaneous packet transmissions are allowed. In the context of ATM we consider on-off sources transmitting bursts of data packed in cells. The Aloha analysis is shown to comply to ATM too, if cell bursts are conceptually identified with packets. By means of a leaky Markov model, both exact and approximate expressions are obtained for the burst throughput (S) as a function of offered traffic (G) for any burst length distribution. By introducing the matrix Laplace transform, these expressions can be written compactly and computed conveniently.