Fairness problems at the media access level for high-speed networks

Most lower speed (approx. 10 Mbps) local area networks use adaptive or random access protocols like Ethernet. Others at higher speed use demand assignment like token or slotted rings. These include Cambridge ring and electronic token ring systems. Fairness issues in representatives of such protocols are discussed. In particular, Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) was selected as a demand access protocol using tokens, Carrier Sensed Multiple Access/Ring Network (CSMA/RN) a random access protocol, and Distributed Queue Dual Bus (DQDB) a demand access protocol using reservations. Fairness at the media access level was the focus, i.e., attaining access or being excessively delayed when a message is queued to be sent as a function of network location. Within that framework, the essential fairness of FDDI was observed along with severe fairness problems in DQDB and some problems for CSMA/RN. Several modifications were investigated and their ameliorative effect is shown. Finally, a unified presentation which allows comparisons of the three protocols' fairness when normalized to their capacity is given.