Medium Access Control: Stochastic Methods - ALOHA
Explore the basics of stochastic Medium Access Control algorithms focusing on ALOHA, an early wireless packet network system. Understand how ALOHA handles collisions through retransmissions, the concept of acknowledgments and timeouts, and how slotted ALOHA improves network efficiency by synchronizing transmissions into time slots.
We'll cover the following...
Stochastic or Optimistic MAC algorithms assume that collisions are part of the normal operation of a Local Area Network. They aim to minimize the number of collisions, but they don’t try to avoid all collisions.
Stochastic algorithms are usually easier to implement than deterministic ones.
Additive Links On-line Hawaii Area (ALOHA)
In the 1960s, computer networks consisted of mainframes with a few dozen terminals attached to them using the telephone network or physical cables. The University of Hawaii chose a different organization though. Instead of using telephone lines to connect the terminals to the mainframes, they developed the first packet radio ...