Chapter 11
Chapter 11
To minimize the chance of collision and, therefore, increase the performance, the CSMA method
was developed.
The chance of collision can be reduced if a station senses the medium before trying to use it.
Carrier sense multiple access (CSMA) requires that each station first listen to the medium (or
check the state of the medium) before sending.
CSMA can reduce the possibility of collision, but it cannot eliminate it.
Stations are connected to a shared channel (usually a dedicated medium).
The possibility of collision still exists because of propagation delay; when a station sends a frame, it
still takes time (although very short) for the first bit to reach every station and for every station to
sense it.
a station may sense the medium and find it idle, only because the first bit sent by another station has
not yet been received.
At time t1, station B senses the medium and finds it idle, so it sends a frame. At time t2 (t2 > t1),
station C senses the medium and finds it idle because,
at this time, the first bits from station B have not reached station C.
Station C also sends a frame. The two signals collide and both frames are destroyed.
CSMA/CD
Carrier sense multiple access with collision detection (CSMA/CD) augments the algorithm to
handle the collision.
a station monitors the medium after it sends a frame to see if the transmission was successful.
If so, the station is finished. If, however, there is a collision, the frame is sent again.
To better understand CSMA/CD, the first bits transmitted by the two stations involved in the
collision.
Although each station continues to send bits in the frame until it detects the collision, we show
what happens as the first bits collide.
In Figure 12.11, stations A and C are involved in the collision.
At time t1, station A has executed its persistence procedure and starts sending the bits of its frame.
At time t2, station C has not yet sensed the first bit sent by A.
Station C executes its persistence procedure and starts sending the bits in its frame, which propagate
both to the left and to the right.
The collision occurs sometime after time t2. Station C detects a collision at time t3 when it receives
the first bit of A’s frame.
Station C immediately aborts transmission.
Station A detects collision at time t4 when it receives the first bit of C’s frame; it also immediately
aborts transmission.
A transmits for the duration t4 − t1; C transmits for the duration t3 − t2.
CSMA/CA
Carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) was invented for wireless
networks.
Collisions are avoided through the use of CSMA/CA’s three strategies:
the interframe space, the contention window, and acknowledgments
Interframe Space (IFS).
First, collisions are avoided by deferring transmission even if the channel is found idle.
When an idle channel is found, the station does not send immediately.
It waits for a period of time called the interframe space or IFS.
Even though the channel may appear idle when it is sensed, a distant station may have already
started transmitting. The distant station’s signal has not yet reached this station.
The IFS time allows the front of the transmitted signal by the distant station to reach this station.
After waiting an IFS time, if the channel is still idle, the station can send, but it still needs to wait a
time equal to the contention window.
The IFS variable can also be used to prioritize stations or frame types.
Contention Window.
The contention window is an amount of time divided into slots.
A station that is ready to send chooses a random number of slots as its wait time.
The number of slots in the window changes according to the binary exponential backoff
strategy.
This means that it is set to one slot the first time and then doubles each time the station cannot
detect an idle channel after the IFS time.
This is very similar to the p-persistent method except that a random outcome defines the
number of slots taken by the waiting station.
One interesting point about the contention window is that the station needs to sense the channel
after each time slot.
However, if the station finds the channel busy, it does not restart the process; it just stops the
timer and restarts it when the channel is sensed as idle
Acknowledgment
With all these precautions, there still may be a collision resulting in destroyed data.
In addition, the data may be corrupted during the transmission.
The positive acknowledgment and the time-out timer can help guarantee that thereceiver has
received the frame.