A simulation study of a CSMA/CD with connected data links

Since local area networks (LANs) have become a vital part of the modern computing, a great deal of effort has been devoted to their design, standardization, and implementation. Most of this work has been based on a simple linear bus or ring topology (Ethernet, Token Bus, and Token Ring). However, the linear bus and ring topology networks have significant disadvantages in certain applications. Recently, the authors proposed a new hybrid architecture local area network, Hybrid-Meshnet. The Hybrid-Meshnet allows an insertion and/or deletion of data links into/from existing local area networks: Ethernet or Token Ring. The earlier works have concentrated on a token ring with connected data links. In this paper, the authors investigate another Hybrid-Meshnet network architecture, CSMA/CD, with connected data links. A simulation model is designed for the purpose of performance measure of the proposed network. Simulation results indicate that, even with small increase in link cost by addition of direct data links, performance can be improved significantly over a pure Ethernet