ON THE DELAY IN A MULTIPLE-ACCESS SYSTEM WITH LARGE PROPAGATION DELAY

The effect that large propagation delay has on the problem of network access is explored for the infinite population model with success-idle -collision feedback information, where the feedback information suffer s a large propagation delay N. A simple lower bound is given on the pr obability that a packet is not successfully transmitted within N / 2 t ime units (not including the forward propagation delay), where N is th e station-to-station propagation delay. The bound implies a lower boun d on the mean access delay. We also display an algorithm for which the transmission delay is within a factor of three of the lower bound, fo r moderate traffic loads and asymptotically large propagation delay.