FRMA: a new high-speed metropolitan and local area network protocol

Multimedia services, teleconferencing, high performance visualization, and distributed supercomputing are expected to accelerated the demand of high-speed Local and Metropolitan Area Networks (LAN/MANs). In this paper, we propose a new MAC protocol, called Fast Reservation Multiple Access (FRMA), which is suitable for a folded bus high-speed MANs and LANs. Its main feature is a simple and fast reservation technique that allow stations to reserve transmission slots. The goal of the reservation is to maximize the throughput of the system and to ensure fairness among the attached stations. A complete description of the FRMA protocol and the associated nodes are given. Then, we show the performance of FRMA as a function of its throughput, mean delays, and fairness using simulation results. Our protocol is shown to achieve high throughput and small transmission delays while preserving the fairness of the whole network. Thus, the FRMA protocol seem to be an appropriate choice for future generation high-speed MANs and LANs.