A MAC protocol for ATM over satellite

In this paper we analyse the performance of an adaptive random-reservation medium access control (MAC) protocol which can support all ATM service classes while providing the required quality of service (QoS). Our study focuses on parameter optimisation of the multiple access schemes for ATM over a GEO satellite with on-board processing capabilities, considering various traffic mixes of constant bit rate (CBR), realtime VBR (rt-VBR), non-real-time VBR (nrt-VBR) and unspecified bit rate (UBR). It is shown that a TDMA access protocol combining both random access and demand assignment multiple access (DAMA) can achieve a high throughput and is particularly suited for a scenario with a high number of terminals with very bursty UBR traffic (e.g. web browsing). The adaptive MAC protocol was designed to allow statistical multiplexing of ATM traffic over the air interface, especially for the independent and spatially distributed terminals. It is shown that the potential user population which can be served is considerably increased by statistically multiplexing bursty traffic over the air interface