HIPERLAN: A High Performance Fiber Optic LAN for Multi-Megabyte Transfers

Military and commercial computer applications such as intelligence data gathering, graphics, image processing, etc., have the special properties of processing and storing very large amounts of data. Distributed processing sites will soon require communications systems capable of transferring large amounts of data quickly and reliably. Current node architectures and protocols have consistently proved to be the bottlenecks in end-to-end transmissions, lowering the already inadequate throughput rate of modern transmission media. This paper introduces the node and network architecture of HIPERLAN, a fiber optic based local area network capable of achieving an aggregate data throughput exceeding 450 Mb/s. A new access method is described which promises to achieve a very high channel utilization under heavy traffic load conditions. Finally, the protocol structure design and the software implementation strategy are outlined. The paper concludes with a few paragraphs outlining possible applications and the inclusion of security features.