Origin of critical behavior in Ethernet traffic

We perform a simplified Ethernet traffic simulation in order to clarify the physical mechanism of the phase transition behavior which has been experim entally observed in the flow density fluctuation of Internet traffic. In on e phase, traffics from nodes connected with an Ethernet cable are mixed, an d in the other phase, the nodes alternately send bursts of packets. The com petition of sending packets among nodes and the binary exponential back-off algorithm are revealed to play important roles in producing 1/f fluctuatio ns at the critical point. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserve d.