On the optimality of cyclic transmission in teletext systems

Teletext is a one-way information system where pages of information are broadcast to all users in a continuous manner. System response time is an important consideration in the design of teletext systems. One of the factors contributing to response time is the order in which pages are broadcast. In this paper, we formulate the problem of deciding on the sequence of page transmissions as a Markovian decision process. Using this formulation we show that, from a response time point-of-view, a cyclic order of page transmissions is optimal.