A reservation protocol for packet voice and data integration in unidirectional bus networks

A movable boundary protocol is proposed for integrating packet voice and data in unidirectional bus networks. The head station on the bus learns the number of ready-to-transmit voice stations by reading a `request´ bit in the header of the received packets and allocates the exact number of voice slots needed in each frame. The protocol guarantees that the maximum delay to transmit a voice packet will be less than the round-trip propagation delay at the head station plus twice the time needed to form the packet. The average data packet delay is evaluated via approximate analysis and simulation, for the case in which the voice-reserved slots in a frame are contiguous and for the case in which they are evenly distributed