Fixed collision rate back-off algorithm for wireless access networks

The binary exponential back-off (BEB) scheme is widely adopted in both wire and wireless networks for collision resolution. One result of the BEB algorithm is last-come-first-serve among competing users, which leads to the "capture effect" that allows a single or a few "winning" users to dominate the available bandwidth. Another result is that, in the limit as the number of users approaches infinity, BEB is unstable for every arrival rate greater than 0. In wireless networks, an access point or base station is usually adopted as a central point to control several wireless devices. Taking the advantage of this master station, we propose a novel scheme, fixed collision rate (FCR) backoff algorithm, which provides a constant throughput of about 0.368 even at extremely busy channel. In addition, FCR provides a much fairer bandwidth allocation among competing users.