Hidden transmission: a method to improve the performance of a token ring network

The statistically available bandwidth in token ring networks is analyzed and a protocol called Hidden Transmission is proposed which will enable a token ring network to give better performance under all load conditions. The analysis shows that for every data packet transmitted, up to 0.7 extra packets can be transmitted in one rotation of the data packet. This unused bandwidth can be used to carry extra data. It is anticipated that an improvement of 50 to 70% in throughput can be achieved with the proposed protocol for a token ring network containing at least two nodes. The changes to current token passing protocols in order to add this feature are discussed