EVALUATION OF RESERVATION-ARBITRATED ACCESS SCHEMES FOR STATISTICAL MULTIPLEXING OF VARIABLE-BIT-RATE VIDEO TRAFFIC OVER DUAL-BUS METROPOLITAN-AREA NETWORKS

To address the problem of video communications over 802.6 MANs, a rese rvation-arbitrated (RA) access protocol is proposed which allows a var iable-bit-rate video source to reserve isochronous channels on a bandw idth-on-demand basis. The paper explains the general method of RA acce ss, compares four different schemes of acquiring incremental bandwidth in response to a reservation request, and evaluates the performance o f RA access by simulations using two video-source models. Results indi cate that RA access provides fair service under a cyclic capturing mec hanism, permits statistical multiplexing while providing nearly isochr onous transport service, allows a video source to adapt to its reserve d bandwidth during network congestion, and facilitates the implementat ion of layered video coding techniques.