Dynamic control of the pi-persistent protocol using channel feedback

The p_i-persistent protocol is an excellent candidate for multiaccess communication over very long and very high-speed (unidirectional) fiber-optic bus networks because it does not suffer from the distance and bandwidth limitations of round-robin-type access mechanisms. The authors develop this protocol further to make it easily implementable, by allowing it to be sensitive to changing load conditions. In particular, they provide and study various properties of a simple algorithm which stations execute independently by using channel feedback information. This results in a fully distributed control mechanism that continuously adjusts the station probabilities p _i at their proper levels as governed by the ordered traffic, where the p_i are parameters of the p_i -persistent protocol