Dispersity routing on ATM networks

Dispersity routing is defined. It is combined with random access and fast circuit set-up and tear-down to put bursty data on an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network. This approach makes the storage in the network independent of the message length. This approach is evaluated assuming that the propagation delay may be more than the message transmission time. It is shown that the efficiency improves as the number of channels on each path increases, and that dispersity routing makes it reasonable to use the strategy on networks with a small number of channels per path. Dispersity routing requires networks with multiple paths between many of the nodes. This characteristic is also required for many adaptive routing strategies. A class of networks is proposed in which the fraction of nodes with multiple paths, and the number of multiple paths between nodes, can be controlled. These networks provide a platform for evaluating multiple path strategies.<>