Finite Population CSMA/CD Networks

A continuous time Markov chain model of a nonpersistent carrier sense multiple access with collision detection (CSMA/CD) protocol is developed to determine the performance of finite population systems. The model allows a wide range of distributions for the length of packets and the lengths of the transmission detection and collision detection times. A stability measure for finite population asynchronous systems-the instantaneous expected drift-is developed. Performance calculations for many sample systems show that the following behavior is characteristic of these systems: a wide range of retransmission rates provides almost optimal performance; the instantaneous drift is a sensitive indicator of the stability characteristics of CSMA/CD networks; if high fixed retransmission rates are used, performance decays very rapidly when other network parameters cross critical thresholds. In addition, adaptive retransmission policies and the maximum length of a CSMA/CD cable network are found to be very sensitive to the distribution of the transmission detection time.