CN - Chapter 4 - Class 1, 2

Chapter 4.
The Medium Access Control Sublayer

The Medium Access Control Sublayer
• Networks can be divided into two categories: those using point to-point connections and those using broadcast
channels.
• In any broadcast network, the key issue is how to determine who gets to use the channel when there is
competition for it.
• When only a single channel is available, determining who should go next is much harder.
• Broadcast channels are sometimes referred to as multiaccess channels or random access channels.
• The protocols used to determine who goes next on a multiaccess channel belong to a sublayer of the data link
layer called the MAC (Medium Access Control) sublayer.
• The MAC sublayer is especially important in LANs, many of which use a multiaccess channel as the basis for
communication.
• WANs, in contrast, use point-to-point links, except for satellite networks.
• Technically, the MAC sublayer is the bottom part of the data link layer.
4.1 The Channel Allocation Problem
• Static Channel Allocation (Fixed Channel allocation)
• Dynamic Channel Allocation
Static Channel Allocation in LANs and MANs
• The traditional way of allocating a single channel, such as a telephone trunk, among multiple competing users is
Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM).
• If there are N users, the bandwidth is divided into N equal-sized portions, each user being assigned one portion.
• Since each user has a private frequency band, there is no interference between users.
• When there is only a small and constant number of users, FDM is a simple and efficient allocation mechanism.
• Disadvantage: when the number of senders is large and continuously varying, FDM presents some problems.
• If the spectrum is cut up into N regions and fewer than N users are currently interested in communicating, a
large piece of valuable spectrum will be wasted.
• If more than N users want to communicate, some of them will be denied permission for lack of bandwidth, even
if some of the users who have been assigned a frequency band hardly ever transmit or receive anything.
• In TDM based allocation Each user is statically allocated every Nth time slot. If a user does not use the allocated
slot, it is just wastage of bandwidth.
Dynamic Channel Allocation in LANs and MANs
• In dynamic channel allocation scheme, frequency bands are not permanently assigned to the users.
• Instead channels are allotted to users dynamically as needed.
• This allocation scheme optimizes bandwidth usage and results is faster transmissions.
• The allocation is done considering a number of parameters so that transmission interference is minimized.
4.2 Multiple Access Protocols
ALOHA
• In the 1970s, Norman Abramson developed this method to solve the channel allocation problem.
• Two versions of ALOHA here: pure and slotted.
• They differ with respect to whether time is divided into discrete slots into which all frames must fit.
• Pure ALOHA does not require global time synchronization; slotted ALOHA does.
Pure ALOHA
• The basic idea of an ALOHA system: Users transmit whenever they have data to be sent. There will be collisions,
of course, and the colliding frames will be damaged.
• However, due to the feedback property of broadcasting, a sender can always find out whether its frame was
destroyed by listening to the channel.
• If listening while transmitting is not possible for some reason, acknowledgements are needed.
• If the frame was destroyed, the sender just waits a random amount of time and sends it again.
• Systems in which multiple users share a common channel in a way that can lead to conflicts are widely known as
contention systems.
Figure 4-1. In pure ALOHA, frames are transmitted at completely
arbitrary times.
• Whenever two frames try to occupy the channel at the same time, there will be a collision and both will be
garbled.
• A frame will not suffer a collision if no other frames are sent within one frame time of its start.
• In pure ALOHA a station does not listen to the channel before transmitting, it has no way of knowing that
another frame was already underway.
• An interesting question is: What is the efficiency of an ALOHA channel? what fraction of all transmitted frames
escape collisions under these chaotic circumstances?
• Throughput
• The maximum throughput occurs at G = 0.5, with S = 1/2e, which is about 0.184.
• In other words, the best we can hope for is a channel utilization of 18 percent.
Figure 4-3. Throughput versus offered traffic for ALOHA systems
Slotted ALOHA
• In 1972, Roberts published a method for doubling the capacity of an ALOHA system.
• His proposal was to divide time into discrete intervals, each interval corresponding to one frame.
• In Roberts' method, which has come to be known as slotted ALOHA, in contrast to Abramson's pure ALOHA, a
computer is not permitted to send whenever a carriage return is typed.
• Instead, it wait for the beginning of the next slot. Thus, the continuous pure ALOHA is turned into a discrete
one.
• Throughput
• Slotted ALOHA peaks at G = 1, with a throughput of S =1/e or about 0.368, twice that of pure ALOHA.
• In other words, the best we can hope for is a channel utilization of 37 percent.
Carrier Sense Multiple Access Protocols
• Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA) is a network protocol for carrier transmission that operates in the Medium
Access Control (MAC) layer.
• With slotted ALOHA the best channel utilization that can be achieved is 1/e.
• In local area networks, however, it is possible for stations to detect what other stations are doing, and adapt
their behavior accordingly. These networks can achieve a much better utilization than 1/e.
• Protocols in which stations listen for a carrier (i.e., a transmission) and act accordingly are called carrier sense
protocols.
• It senses or listens whether the shared channel for transmission is busy or not, and transmits if the channel is
not busy.
Working Principle
• When a station has frames to transmit, it attempts to detect presence of the carrier signal from the other nodes
connected to the shared channel.
• If a carrier signal is detected, it implies that a transmission is in progress.
• The station waits till the ongoing transmission executes to completion, and then initiates its own transmission.
• Generally, transmissions by the node are received by all other nodes connected to the channel.
• Since, the nodes detect for a transmission before sending their own frames, collision of frames is reduced.

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Chapter 4.

The Medium Access Control Sublayer

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