A Comparative Analysis of Demand Assignment Multiple Access Protocols for Wireless ATM Networks

The concept of wireless ATM is now being actively considered as a potential framework for next-generation wireless communication networks capable of supporting integrated multimedia services with different QoS requirements. Several key subsystem design issues for wired ATM and wireless networks needs to be readdressed in the scope of the wireless ATM, which has the capability to extend the statistical multiplexing of wired ATM network into the wireless medium. One of the key subsystem issues is the development of appropriate medium access control (MAC) protocol. The extension of the ATM network into wireless environment faces many interesting problems. The original ATM network was designed for high speed, noiseless, and reliable channels. None of these characteristics are applicable to the wireless channel. One of the critical aspects of a wireless ATM network is the Medium or Multi Access Control (MAC) Protocol used by the Mobile station (MS) to request service from the BS, which has to consider the Quality of Service (QoS) of the specific applications. This paper analyzes recently proposed MAC protocols, particularly those of Demand Assignment Multiple Access protocols using TDMA technique with Frequency Division Duplex (FDD). It also gives performance measures of two best suited protocols for wireless network environment Distributed Queuing Request Update Multiple Access (DQRUMA) protocol and Adaptive Request Channel Multiple Access (ARCMA) protocol.