Unit 2

Medium Access Control

Medium Access Control
• Medium access control comprises all mechanisms that regulate user
access to a medium using SDM, TDM, FDM, or CDM.
• Control user access to the medium
• Traffic signal analogy – several vehicles use same street for crossing , requires
some rules to avoid accidents.
• One vehicle passes at a time at a crossing
• If there is a collision, wait till road cleared, start again
Medium Access in Wireline
• Assumptions
• Signal strength is constant throughout the wire
• Signal condition detected at one end is same at the other
• Same signal strength can be assumed all over the wire, if the length of wire remains
within standard limit.
• Collisions can be detected by any node listening to the wire
• CSMA/CD operation (wireline protocol)
• Recall road example
• carrier sense – listen on wire and confirm that medium is free; if yes, send packet
• collision detection – listen while transmitting; if collision detected (certain signal
pattern); stop sending, block medium – send jam signal
Medium Access in Wireless

• Signal strength is not constant throughout the medium

• Signal attenuates with distance; condition detected at one end is not same at the other
• Strength of a signal decreases proportionally to the square of the distance to the sender.
• Collisions at receiver cannot be detected by listening to the medium
• CSMA/CD operation in wireless
• carrier sense – medium free maybe detected at sender; condition may not
hold at receivers end
• collision detection – similar problem; collision may have occurred at receiver;
sender may not be aware
Wireless Medium Access Problems
Terminology – Hidden / exposed terminals
• B in range of A and C
• A and C cannot hear each other
• A transmits, C can sense medium free and vice versa (Hidden terminals)
• Collision at B if both transmit at same time
• If B transmits to A
• C senses medium busy
• C could have transmitted
to D; without any collisions
• C is exposed terminal (~ A) A B C D

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Wireless Medium Access Problems
Terminology – Near / far terminals
• B closer to C, compared to A
• B’s signal drowns that of A
• Signal from source B is overpowering or dominating the signal from source A
• C may not hear A; A not visible
• C cannot receive A’s transmission
• Critical issue in CDM (?)
• v/s GSM which has time slots for all terminals
• GSM: No simultaneous transmission A B C
• CDM has simultaneous transmission
• CDM: All terminals should be detectable
by base station

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 Multiplexing
• Describes how several users can share a medium with
minimum or no interference.
• Many users (car drivers) use the same medium (the
highways) with hopefully no interference (i.e. accidents)
• Possible due to the provision of several lanes separating
the traffic.
• Also different cars use the same medium (i.e, the same
lane) at different points in time.

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Multiplexing
• The wireless channels can be multiplexed in four dimensions:
• Time(t): A channel gets the whole frequency spectrum for a certain amount of
time.

• Space(s): Same frequency can be reused when the base stations are separated in
space.

• Frequency(f): The whole spectrum is separated into smaller frequency bands.

• Code(c):Each channel uses a unique code for transmitting.

Space Division Multiplexing (SDMA)

For remaining K4 to K6
other three additional
space is required.
Highway example –
Each driver had his or
her own lane
Old Telephone systems-
each subscriber is given
a separate pair of
copper wires to local
exchange.

SDM example –FM radio station in

Mumbai and Ahmedabad can use
same frequency –as they are not
in same range.
Space Division Multiplexing (SDMA)

Cellular transmission –each cell

uses frequency other than its
neighboring cell.

If several radio stations want to

broadcast in the same city -
Solution?
Space Division Multiplexing (SDMA)

If several radio stations want to

broadcast in the same city -
Solution?

SDM not suitable

Solution:

Multiplexing through

Frequency
Time
Code
Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDMA)

• Each channel Ki has its own frequency band

• Senders using a certain frequency band can use this band continuously.
• Guard space required
 Frequency Division Multiplexing
(FDMA)

• Example: Radio stations within same region – will have their own frequency for
transmitting. Used for radio stations within same range.
• Advantage: Very Simple scheme – To receive data, receiver only has to tune to
particular sender's frequency.
 Time Division Multiplexing (TDMA)

• Each channel is given the whole bandwidth for certain amount of

time.
• All senders use the same frequency but at different point of time.
• Guard space required - in terms of time. Between previous
transmission and next transmission there should be some time
gap.
 Time Division Multiplexing (TDMA)

• Highway example – gap between two cars.

• Discuss Advantage and Disadvantage?
 Time Division Multiplexing (TDMA)

• Disadvantage:
• All senders need time synchronization
• For a receiver tuning in to a sender – need to adjust to
sender’s frequency as well as correct time slot.
 Time +Frequency Division Multiplexing
(TDMA+FDMA)

• Each channel can use certain frequency for certain amount of

time.
• Guard space needed in both terms –time and frequency
• Standard GSM uses – time + frequency multiplexing
 Time +Frequency Division Multiplexing
(TDMA+FDMA)

• Discuss Disadvantage?
 Time +Frequency Division Multiplexing
(TDMA+FDMA)

• Disadvantage
• Necessary coordination between different senders.
• One has to control the sequence of frequencies and the time of changing to
another frequency.
• Two senders will interfere as soon as they select same frequency at the
same time.
 Code Division Multiplexing (CDMA)

• Every channel uses same frequency at same time

• Separation is achieved by assigning each channel its own code.
• Guard space is achieved – by taking care that each channel is
assigned different code.
Code Division Multiplexing (CDMA)

• Disadvantage:
• Complex receiver - has to know the
code for decoding

• All signals must reach receiver with

same strength –otherwise some
signals could drain others.

• If some people close to a

receiver talk very loudly the
language does not matter. The
receiver cannot listen to any
other person.

• CDM – power control is

required.
TDMA
• Time slots allotted to users
• Receiver is simple since single frequency
• Listening to different frequencies at the same time is quite difficult.
• Listening to same frequency at different time is simple.
• Almost all MAC schemes for wired networks use TDM – Ethernet, Token
Ring, ATM etc.
• Options
• Dynamic allocation of slots
• E.g. Sender may transmit in slot 1 or slot 10; depending on assignment
• Fixed allocation of slots
• E.g. Sender 1 would always transmit in slot 5

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TDMA
• Dynamic allocation
• Sender may transmit in any slot
• Could any problems occur? What the sender needs to do? What receiver
needs to do?
• Fixed allocation
• Sender will transmit in fixed slots
• Could any problems occur? What the sender needs to do? What receiver
needs to do?

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TDMA
• Dynamic allocation (we shall study this further)
• Sender may transmit in any slot
• Receiver has to know whether it is intended receiver; sender identification is
required for response
• Alternate: Announce the allocation scheme periodically
• Good for dynamic loads
• Fixed allocation
• Sender will transmit in fixed slots
• Sender and receiver tune in for specific slots; identification not necessary
• Good for static loads

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Fixed TDM
• Allocate time slots for channels in a fixed pattern.
• So Fixed bandwidth
• If synchronization is assured- each mobile station knows its turn and
no interference
• Fixed pattern can be assigned by the base station – where
competition between different mobile station is solved.

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Fixed TDM
• Fixed access pattern:
• Suitable for connections with a fixed bandwidth
• Guarantee a fixed delay- e.g one can transmit after every
10 ms.
• Used in many digital mobile phone systems lie IS54, IS13,
GSM, DECT

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Fixed TDM
• Time Division Duplex: Assigning different uplink and
downlink slots between base station and mobile
station.

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Fixed TDM
• Fixed access pattern:
• Perfect for connections with constant data rate.
• Inefficient for bursty or asymmetric or dynamic traffic patterns.
• If temporary bursts in data are sent from the base station
to the mobile station often or vice versa (as in the case of
web browsing, where no data transmission occurs while
reading a page, whereas clicking on a hyperlink triggers a
data transfer from the mobile station, often to the base
station, often followed by huge amounts of data returned
from the web server)
• Too static – inflexible for data communication
• Needs – connectionless, demand oriented TDMA
schemes

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Dynamic TDM
Demand Oriented TDMA - Simple Aloha
• Simple MAC
• Node just sends the data, whenever it wants to
• If collision, resend – resolving problems left to higher layers
• Pro: Simple MAC
• Con: Collisions
• Aloha scheme (cannot be called a MAC☺) – but good for light load
• Achieves maximum throughput of ~18%
• Can Aloha handle Hidden/exposed terminal problem?

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TDM
Slotted Aloha
• Simple MAC
• Node just sends the data, whenever it wants to, but starts at a slot boundary
• Slots reduce the probability of collision
• If collision, resend
• Achieves maximum throughput of ~36%
• Can Slotted Aloha handle Hidden/exposed terminal problem?

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Simple Aloha\ Slotted Aloha

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MAC Design Principles
• Limited resources to be allocated to a set of users
• Choose suitable dimension(s) to partition the resource
• Space, time, frequency, code, etc.
• Decide technique for optimal allocation of resources to the users, in
the selected dimension
• E.g. time → TDMA

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MAC Design Approaches
Centralized scheme Distributed scheme
• Single base station or master • All nodes contend for medium
• All other nodes are slaves • No central controlling station
• Master controls access to medium • Pros:
• Examples: Wireless LAN, cellular network • Lesser delays (why?)
with base station
• Cons:
• Pros: • Complex implementation
• Simple implementation
• Master is a bottleneck
• Cons:
• Single point of failure
• Master needs to be re-elected on
failure
• E.g. Polling / Probing

Information Source: http://www.cs.cornell.edu/skeshav/book/slides/index.html

S. Keshav, An Engineering Approach to Computer Networking
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Performance metrics
• Normalized throughput
• fraction of link capacity used to carry non-retransmitted packets
• example
• with no collisions, 1000 packets/sec
• with a particular scheme and workload, 250 packets/sec
• => Throughput = 0.25
• Mean delay
• amount of time a station has to wait before it successfully transmits a packet
• depends on the load and the characteristics of the medium

Source: http://www.cs.cornell.edu/skeshav/book/slides/index.html
S. Keshav, An Engineering Approach to Computer Networking
Performance metrics
• Stability
• with heavy load, is all the time spent on resolving contentions?
• => unstable
• with a stable algorithm, throughput does not decrease with offered load
• if infinite number of uncontrolled stations share a link, then instability is
guaranteed
• but if sources reduce load when overload is detected, can achieve stability
• Fairness
• no single definition
• ‘no-starvation’: source eventually gets a chance to send
• max-min fair share
Source: http://www.cs.cornell.edu/skeshav/book/slides/index.html
S. Keshav, An Engineering Approach to Computer Networking
Medium Access Control
Review
• Control user access to the medium
• Traffic signal analogy
• One vehicle passes at a time at a crossing
• If there is a collision, wait till road cleared, start again
• Medium access control can be centralized or decentralized
• Improvised MAC required for wireless (?later)
Medium Access in Wireless
Review
• Wireline assumptions fail
• Signal strength is not constant throughout the medium
• Signal attenuates with distance; condition detected at one end is not same at the other
• Collisions at receiver cannot be detected by listening to the medium
• CSMA/CD operation in wireless
• Hidden / exposed terminal problems
• Near / far terminal problems
• TDMA
• Dynamic or Fixed slot allocation
• Aloha – simple MAC
Improving Aloha
• Aloha
• Low Throughput
• What is missing in Aloha?
• How can it be improved?
Improving Aloha
Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA)
• What is missing in Aloha?
• Carrier sensing not done; a node transmits whenever it node wants to
• How to improve?
• Sense the carrier before transmission
• Will this improve Aloha?
Persistence Methods

• 1 Persistent CSMA
• In 1-persistent CSMA, the station continuously senses the channel
to check its state i.e. idle or busy so that it can transfer data or not.
• In case when the channel is busy, the station will wait for the
channel to become idle.
• When station found idle channel, it transmits the frame to the
channel without any delay.

11.44
1 Persistent CSMA

• It transmits the frame with probability 1.

• Due to probability 1, it is called 1-persistent CSMA.
• Disadvantages:
• The problem with this method is that there are a large number of
chances for the collision it is because there is a chance when two
or more stations found channel in idle state and the transmit
frames at the same time.
• On the time when collision occurs the station has to wait for the
random time for the channel to be idle and to start all again.

11.45
1- Persistent CSMA

11.46
Non-Persistent CSMA
• In this method, the station that has frames to send, only
that station senses for the channel.
• In case of an idle channel, it will send frame immediately to
that channel.
• In case when the channel is found busy, it will wait for the
random time and again sense for the state of the station
whether idle or busy.
• In this method, the station does not immediately sense for
the channel for only the purpose of capturing it when it
detects the end of the previous transmission.

11.47
 Non-Persistent CSMA
• The main advantage of using this method is that it reduces
the chances of collision.
• The problem with this is that it reduces the efficiency of the
network.

11.48
Non-persistent CSMA

11.49
Q&A

• What is the difference between 1 persistent and non persistent CSMA

?

11.50
P-Persistent CSMA
• P-Persistent CSMA is applied to Slotted Channels.
• When a station becomes ready to send, it senses the
channel.
• If it is idle, it transmits with a probability P
• With a probability Q=1-P, it defers until the next slot
• If that slot is also idle, it either transmits or defers again ,
with probabilities P and Q.
• This process is repeated until either the frame has been
transmitted or another station has begun transmitting.
• If the station initially senses the channel busy, it waits until
the next slot and applies the above algorithm.

11.51
 Figure 12.10 Behavior of three persistence methods

12.52
 Figure 12.11 Flow diagram for three persistence methods

12.53
Improving Aloha
Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA)
• When medium sensed two possibilities
• Medium busy or free
a) If medium free → transmit immediately
b) If medium busy → wait (how long?)
i. Goto (a)
• This is non-persistent CSMA; what are the variables?
• Improving CSMA: the variables here are
• wait time – when to sense again
• instant when to transmit
Improving Aloha
Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA)
• Wait time and transmit instant – each can be
• Random, 0, changing according to some algorithm
• Wait time
• 0 = persistent
• Random = non-persistent
• Transmit instant
• Transmit with probability ‘p’
• Node can transmit now, since medium is free
• It tosses a coin and then decides (p=0.5)
• If wait time=0; and p=1 then called p-persistent CSMA
Improving Aloha
• How can Aloha be improved, if a central controller is available?
• Justify your design
• Discuss the pros/cons
Improving Aloha
Demand Assigned Multiple Access
• Improvement of Aloha access systems can also be achieved by
reservation mechanisms and combinations with some (fixed) TDM
patterns.
• These schemes typically have a reservation period followed by a
transmission period.
• Explicit reservation of slots
• Initially regular Aloha; only for reservation of slots
• Later data transmission in assigned slots
• No collisions during data transmissions
Improving Aloha
Analyzing DAMA
Improving Aloha Analyzing DAMA
• Initial time needed to reserve slots
• If there are few or one nodes, time is wasted in reserving slots
• If too many contending nodes, slot assignment may take more time
• Slots are assigned after Aloha
• No mechanism to assign priorities to nodes
• A node may always lose the Aloha competition!
• Is this possible? How to ensure fairness?
Improving Aloha Analyzing DAMA
• Different stations on earth try to reserve access time for satellite transmission.
• Collisions during the reservation phase do not destroy data transmission, but
only the short requests for data transmission.
• If successful, a time slot in the future is reserved, and no other station is allowed
to transmit during this slot.
• Therefore, the satellite collects all successful requests (the others are destroyed)
and sends back a reservation list indicating access rights for future slots.
• All ground stations have to obey this list.
• To maintain the fixed TDM pattern of reservation and transmission, the stations
have to be synchronized from time to time.
• DAMA is an explicit reservation scheme. Each transmission slot has to be
reserved explicitly.
Implicit Reservation
• Aloha
• Use data for getting a slot and transmitting
• Contend for all packet transmissions
• DAMA
• Explicit reservation of slots, before sending data
• Do not use data for reservation
• Another approach
• Use data for implicit reservation
• Hold on to reservation till done – Packet Reservation Multiple Access

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Packet Reservation Multiple Access
• Reservations for cellular domain
• Centralized medium access
• Devices have speech and data packets to send
• Speech is periodic; when started will continue for some time
• slots required for some period
• Speech and data packets contend for resources (slot)

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Packet Reservation Multiple Access
• A certain number of slots combine to form a frame.
• Frame is repeated in time.
• A base stations – ex: satellite – broadcasts the status
of each slot.
• All stations receiving vector – will know which slot is
occupied and which slot is free.
• As soon as station has succeeded with a reservation,
all future slots are implicitly reserved for this slot.
• The slotted aloha scheme is used for idle slots- data is
not destroyed.

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Distributed Packet Reservation Multiple
Access Protocol (D-PRMA)
• Implicit reservation (PRMA - Packet Reservation Multiple Access):
• a certain number of slots form a frame, frames are repeated
• stations compete for empty slots according to the slotted aloha principle
• once a station reserves a slot successfully, this slot is automatically
assigned to this station in all following frames as long as the station has
data to send
• competition for this slots starts again as soon as the slot was empty in the
last frame 1.

reservation 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 time-slot
ACDABA-F frame1 A C D A B A F
ACDABA-F frame2 A C A B A
AC-ABAF- frame3 A B A F collision at
reservation
A---BAFD frame4 A B A F D attempts
t
ACEEBAFD frame5 A C E E B 64A F D
Access method DAMA: Reservation-TDMA
• Reservation Time Division Multiple Access
• every frame consists of N mini-slots and x data-slots
• every station has its own mini-slot and can reserve up to k
data-slots using this mini-slot (i.e. x = N * k).
• other stations can send data in unused data-slots according to
a round-robin sending scheme (best-effort traffic)
e.g. N=6, k=2
N mini-slots N * k data-slots

reservations other stations can use free data-slots

for data-slots based on a round-robin scheme
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 Protocols till now..
• FDMA, TDMA Protocols without
central controller, do
• TDM – Fixed, dynamic not solve hidden
• Aloha, Slotted Aloha terminal\exposed
terminal problems
• Carrier sense multiple
access – Collision
Protocols with central
avoidance (CSMA\CA) controller, Central base
• Demand assigned multiple station assigning TDM
patterns.
access (DAMA)
• Packet reservation Hidden terminal
problem – unknown
multiple access (PRMA)
• Reservation TDMA If the terminal is
hidden it cannot
communicate anyway.
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Requirement
• No central controller
• Need of dynamic reservation – not fixed reservation (as in fixed TDM,
PRMA)
• Solve hidden terminal and exposed terminal problem.

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Multiple access with collision avoidance
(MACA)
• Solves hidden\exposed terminal problem.
• Does not need a base station (central controller)
• Still a random access aloha scheme – with dynamic reservation.

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Multiple access with collision avoidance
(MACA)
• MACA
• When a node wants to transmit a data packet, it first transmit a RTS (Request
To Send) frame.
• The receiver node, on receiving the RTS packet, if it is ready to receive the data
packet, transmits a CTS (Clear to Send) packet.
• Once the sender receives the CTS packet without any error, it starts
transmitting the data packet.
• If a packet transmitted by a node is lost, the node uses the binary exponential
back-off (BEB) algorithm to back off a random interval of time before retrying.

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Multiple access with collision avoidance
(MACA)
• What RTS and CTS frame will include?
• Sender’s name
• Receiver's name
• Length of the future transmission

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MACA examples
• MACA avoids the problem of hidden terminals
• A and C want to
send to B
RTS
• A sends RTS first. CTS CTS
• B will receive RTS . A B C

• C cannot here RTS send by A.

• B will send CTS to A.
• C can listen to CTS send by B.
• C waits after receiving
CTS from B B

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MACA examples
• MACA avoids the problem of exposed terminals
• B wants to send to A, C
want to send to D.
• B will send RTS to A.
• RTS will be received by C also.
• A will send CTS to B. C can’t listen CTS from A.
• So C will continue its transmission to D.

RTS RTS

CTS
A B C D

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Multiple access with collision avoidance
(MACA)
• Is there any possibility of collision? Where and when?

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Multiple access with collision avoidance
(MACA)
• Is there any possibility of collision? Where and when?
• Collision can occur during sending of RTS.
• Both A and C could send RTS to B at same time.
• RTS is very small compared to the data transmission, so the probability of a
collision is much lower.
• B resolves contention and can acknowledge on station in the CTS (if it was able
to recover the RTS at all).
• No transmission allowed without an appropriate CTS.

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Multiple access with collision avoidance
(MACA)
• Problem with MACA ?

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Multiple access with collision avoidance
(MACA)
• Problem with MACA:
• Overheads associated with the RTS and CTS transmissions.
• For short and time critical data packets – not feasible.

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Polling
• Can be applied when one station is to be heard by all others (the base
station)
• Strictly centralized scheme – with one master and several slave
stations.
• Master will poll slaves – according to round robin or randomly
• Used in Bluetooth wireless LAN

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Inhibit Sense Multiple Access
• Base station only signals a busy medium via a busy tone (called BUSY/IDLE
indicator) on the downlink.
• After the busy tone stops, accessing the uplink is not coordinated any
further.
• The base station acknowledges successful transmissions, a mobile station
detects a collision only via the missing positive acknowledgement.

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 Comparison of S/T/F/CDMA

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