Statistically optimized minislot allocation for initial and collision resolution in hybrid fiber coaxial networks

In a two-way hybrid fiber coaxial (HFC) network, the headend broadcasts in downstream channels, whereas all stations share the upstream channels. Henc e, collision occurs when multiple stations send their bandwidth requests in a minislot, The headend determines how many minislots to allocate to manag e collisions. This paper proposes a minislot allocation (SOMA) algorithm to optimize minislot throughput based on statistical estimation. A time propo rtional scheme is adopted to estimate the number of new requests in the ini tial resolution process. In addition, the number of retry requests in the c ollision resolution process is estimated by looking up a predetermined tabl e of the most likely number of requests (MLR). In addition, SOMA is modifie d to reduce the request access delay by relaxing its allocation policy in a specific situation. We use a self-similar traffic model for simulation and analysis to compare SOMA with the optimal bound and the 3-ary tree algorit hm.