This paper proposes and analyzes a distributed MAC protocol that achieves zero collision with no control message exchange nor synchronization. ZC (ZeroCollision) is neither reservation-based nor dynamic TDMA; the protocol supports variable-length packets and does not lose efficiency when some of the stations do not transmit. At the same time, ZC is not a CSMA; in its steady state, it is completely collision-free. The stations transmit repeatedly in a round-robin order once the convergence state is reached. If some stations skip their turn, their transmissions are replaced by idle @math -second mini-slots that enable the other stations to keep track of their order. Because of its short medium access delay and its efficiency, the protocol supports both real-time and elastic applications. The protocol allows for nodes leaving and joining the network; it can allocate more throughput to specific nodes (such as an access point). The protocol is robust against carrier sensing errors or clock drift. While collision avoidance is guaranteed in a single collision domain, it is not the case in a multiple collision one. However, experiments show ZC supports a comparable amount of goodput to CSMA in a multiple collision domain environment. The paper presents an analysis and extensive simulations of the protocol, confirming that ZC outperforms both CSMA and TDMA at high and low load.
 Simulation work is reported indicating that packet reservation multiple access (PRMA) allows a variety of information sources to share the same wireless access channel. Some of the sources, such as speech terminals, are classified as periodic and others, such as signaling, are classified as random. Packets from all sources contend for access to channel time slots. When a periodic information terminal succeeds in gaining access, it reserves subsequent time slots for uncontested transmission. Both computer simulations and a listening test reveal that PRMA achieves a promising combination of voice quality and bandwidth efficiency. > The dynamic behavior of the R-ALOHA packet broadcast system with multipacket messages is analyzed in this paper. It is assumed that each user handles one message at a time and the number of packets in a message is geometrically distributed. A Markovian model of the system is first formulated which explicitly contains the influence of the propagation delay of the broadcast channel. An approximate technique called equilibrium point analysis (EPA) is utilized to analyze the multidimensional Markov chain. The system stability behavior and the throughput-average message delay performance are demonstrated by the EPA. Numerical results from both analysis and simulation are given to assess the accuracy of the analytic results. Applying the analytic results to the slotted ALOHA with single packet messages, we prove mathematically that a method by Kleinrock and Lam for taking into account the influence of the propagation delay is an excellent approximation. This paper deals with a random reservation TDMA protocol able to support constant bit rate services as well as variable bit rate services. In particular, voice communications and data transmissions are considered. Voice terminals have a higher priority assigned than data terminals in accessing the shared channel. A suitable analytical approach is proposed in order to evaluate the data and voice subsystem performance. Comparisons to the well known PRMA scheme are also given in order to highlight the superior performance of the proposed approach in terms of maximum data load and overall throughput.