High Capacity: Low Delay Packet Broadcast Multiaccess

Demand assigned packet radio schemes using satellites can achieve high bandwidth utilizations but they generally exhibit relatively poor delay performance at low traffic when compared with random access schemes. A modified demand assigned scheme is proposed which improves delay performance at low traffic by allowing random access transmissions by users who are waiting for channel assignments. The proposed scheme provides low average delays at low traffic (comparable to slotted ALOHA) and bandwidth utilizations comparable to that of demand assigned schemes. The scheme has potential application in situations where the traffic loading tends to vary widely.