Implications of physical layer overhead on the design of multiaccess protocols

The authors examine the implications of physical layer overhead on the design of multiaccess protocols under a demand-assignment framework, comparing full-slot contention with mini-slot contention. Even if the physical layer overhead is substantial relative to the packet size, we show that after `paying the price´ of transmitting the physical layer overhead it is still better, from a delay-throughput perspective, to only transmit a short request rather than a full packet during a contention period