A simple multiple access protocol for metropolitan area networks

As LANs/MANs operate at higher speeds (100 Mb/s-Gb/s) and over longer distances (10's - 100's km) the access mechanism has to be chosen carefully so as to provide high utilization. Protocols are available that operate efficiently at high speeds and long distances. We describe here a particularly simple access mechanism referred to as Simple (S). Performance is simulated under a range of traffic, physical lengths, number of stations and overload conditions. S is compared with both Fasnet and the Distributed Queue Dual Bus (DQDB) schemes. It is almost as efficient as more complex protocols and its overload performance is well behaved.