Reactive DQDB

The authors discuss medium access control in public metropolitan area networks (MANs). A generalization of the distributed queue dual bus (DQDB) protocol which leads to improved medium access control is described for large overload networks where it is known that DQDB can be potentially unfair to competing users (queued arbitrated access). The generalized DQDB protocol, called reactive DQDB, is tested on a specially built simulator. Test results indicate that it has considerable advantages over the bandwidth balancing (BWB) mechanism which is incorporated in the IEEE 802.6 MAC draft standard for public MANs