DCN

Data Link Layer- Access method

Contents
 Approaches to sharing transmission medium
 Random Access Protocols-
 Aloha

 Slotted Aloha
 CSMA

 CSMA/CD
Multiple Access communications

Figure 6.1 Multiple Access Communication

 Approaches to sharing
transmission medium
Static
Channelization : Partitioning
the medium into separate channels
and dedicating to particular users.
Suitable when there is steady
stream of information that makes
efficient use of dedicated channel.

Dynamic Medium Access Control :

Dynamic sharing of the medium on
per packet basis where the user
traffic is not continuous.
Eliminate the incidence of
collisions and to achieve reasonable
utilization of the medium.
Quality of Service (QoS)

 Propagation Delay: Amount of time it takes for the first bit of signal to
travel from the sender to the receiver.
 TP = d/c where d is the distance between the sender
and the receiver and c is the speed of light ( 3 * 10^8 m/s).

 Transmission Delay: It is the amount of time required to push all of the

packet's bits into the wire. In other words, this is the delay caused by the
data-rate of the link.
 Transmission delay is a function of the packet's length and has nothing to
do with the distance between the two nodes. This delay is proportional to
the packet's length in bits. It is given by the following formula:
 Td = N/R where N is the number of bits, and R is the rate of
transmission (say in bits per second)
Problem d

 The stations on a wireless network are a maximum N

of 300 km apart. If the network transmits 400-bit

frames on a shared channel of 200 kbps. Find the
propagation and Transmission Delay
 Solution R
 Propagation Delay : = 300 X 1000 / 3 X 10^8 = 1ms

 Transmission delay = 400/(200 X 10^3) = 2ms

Data link layer

Data link layer divided into two functionality-oriented sublayers

Taxonomy of multiple-access protocols
RANDOM ACCESS

• In random access or contention methods, no

station is superior to another station and none
is assigned the control over another.
• No station permits, or does not permit, another
station to send.
• At each instance, a station that has data to
send uses a procedure defined by the protocol
to make a decision on whether or not to send.
Random Access (Contd..)
Two features give this method its name.
 First, there is no scheduled time for a station to transmit.
Transmission is random among the stations. That is why
these methods are called random access.
 Second, no rules specify which station should send next.
Stations compete with one another to access the
medium. That is why these methods are also called
contention methods.
 In a random access method, each station has the right to
the medium without being controlled by any other
station. However, if more than one station tries to send,
there is an access conflict-collision-and the frames will
be either destroyed or modified
Random Access (Contd..)
 To avoid access conflict or to resolve it
when it happens, each station follows a
procedure that answers the following
questions:
 When can the station access the medium?
 What can the station do if the medium is busy?
 How can the station determine the success or
failure of the transmission?
 What can the station do if there is an access
conflict?
 Frames in a pure ALOHA network
The idea is that each station sends a frame whenever it has a
frame to send. However, since there is only one channel to share,
there is the possibility of collision between frames from different
stations.
 Pure ALOHA network
 The pure ALOHA protocol relies on acknowledgments from
the receiver.
 When a station sends a frame, it expects the receiver to send an
acknowledgment.
 If the acknowledgment does not arrive after a time-out period,
the station assumes that the frame (or the acknowledgment)
has been destroyed and resends the frame.
 If all these stations try to resend their frames after the time-out,
the frames will collide again.
 Pure ALOHA dictates that when the time-out period passes,
each station waits a random amount of time before resending
its frame. The randomness will help avoid more collisions. We
call this time the back-off time TB.
Procedure for pure ALOHA protocol
Example 12.1
The stations on a wireless ALOHA network are a maximum of 600 km apart. If we
assume that signals propagate at 3 × 108 m/s, we find,
K=2
Tp = (6 × 10 ) / (3 × 10 ) = 2 ms.
3 8
R = 0,1,2,3

Now we can find the value of TB for different values of

K.

a. For K = 1, the range is {0, 1}. The station needs to

generate a random number with a value of 0 or 1. This
means that TB is either 0 ms (0 × 2) or 2 ms (1 × 2),
based on the outcome of the random variable.

b. For K = 2, the range is {0, 1, 2, 3}. This means that TB

can be 0, 2, 4, or 6 ms, based on the outcome of the
random variable.

c. For K = 3, the range is {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7}. This

means that TB can be 0, 2, 4, . . . , 14 ms, based on the
outcome of the random variable.
Vulnerable Time
 Vulnerable time is the time in which there is a
possibility of collision.
 To compute the vulnerable time the following
assumptions are taken into consideration:
 We assume that the stations send fixed-length frames
 Each frame takes Tfr sec to send (transmission time).
 Example 12.2
A pure ALOHA network transmits 200-bit frames
on a shared channel of 200 kbps. What is the
requirement to make this frame collision-free?

Solution
Average frame transmission time Tfr = 200 bits/200 kbps = 1 ms.

The vulnerable time is 2 × 1 ms = 2 ms.

This means no station should send later than 1 ms and no station

should start sending during the period (1-ms) that this station is
sending.