1.

Suppose four active nodesnodes A, B, C and Dare competing for access to a

channel using slotted ALOHA. Assume each node has an infinite number of
packets to send. Each node attempts to transmit in each slot with probability p.
The first slot is numbered slot 1, the second slot is numbered slot 2, and so on.
a. What is the probability that node A succeeds for the first time in slot 5?
b. What is the probability that some node (either A, B, C or D) succeeds in slot 4?
c. What is the probability that the first success occurs in slot 3?
d. What is the efficiency of this four-node system? (Hw)4
2. Consider four stations that are all attached to two different bus cables. The
stations exchange fixed size frames of length 1 second. Time is divided into slots of
1 second. When a station has a frame to transmit, the station chooses either bus
with equal probability and transmits at the beginning of the next slot with
probability p. Find the value of p that maximizes the rate at which frames are
successfully transmitted. (sol7)
3. In a LAN, which MAC protocol has a higher efficiency ALOHA or CSMA/CD. What
about in WAN?
4.

Consider an N N cell switch that operates in a time-slotted manner. Assume

that in a slot all the N inputs get a cell. Also assume that a cell has output j as its
destination, with probability 1N for j = 1, . . . , N, and that the destination of a
cell is independent of the other cells. What is the probability that there will be no
destination conflictthat is, that each cell will choose a different destination?

5. Consider a pure Aloha network with an infinite number of nodes on a straight line
of length a. Each packet transmission is of unit length, and transmissions are
attempted according to a Poisson process of rate G. Assume that in this network
there are only broadcasts and that a transmission should be received at all the
nodes. A transmission is a success only if it is received correctly at all the nodes.
a. Find the conditional probability that a transmission starting at x, 0 x a,
is successful.
b. Find the broadcast throughput of the network.
6. For a time-slotted network, where the slots are small compared with the packet
lengths, consider the following variation of slotted Aloha. When a node has a
packet to transmit, it begins transmission at the beginning of a slot. If there was
no collision in the first slot, then it has captured the next X 1 slots, where X is
the packet transmission time and all other stations will defer. If there was a
collision in the first slot, then the node makes a randomized retransmission
attempt (as in slotted Aloha) and continues to do so until it succeeds. All nodes
will know of the end of transmission of this packet when they sense the channel
idle again. If slotted Aloha with an adaptive protocol were to yield a throughput
of when the packet length is equal to the slot length, what would be the
throughput of this network? Note the similarities with the CSMA/CD protocol.
7.

Consider a slotted Aloha network where the attempt process is Poisson with rate
G. Under the condition of maximum throughput, what is the fraction of empty,
successful and collision slots? If it is observed that the network is not operating
under maximum throughput conditions and that the fraction of idle slots is 0.1,

what is the throughput of the network? Is this network overloaded or under

loaded? Explain.
8.

Consider the Aloha protocol for multiple access networks. Let X be the number
of nodes that are backlogged at the beginning of a slot. Assume X has a Poisson
distribution with mean x. Now assume that each backlogged node transmits in
the slot with probability 1/ x independent
of the others.
a. Obtain the joint probability of k nodes being backlogged and r transmitting.
Also obtain the unconditional probability that the slot is idle.
b. If the slot was observed to be idle, what is the a posteriori probability that k
nodes were backlogged at the beginning of the slot?
c. Similarly, find the a posteriori probability that given that there was a
successful transmission in the slot, there were k backlogged nodes at the
beginning of the slot.
d. Using these results suggest a method to continuously estimate x based on
the event in a slotsuccess or idle. Suggest an estimation method for x when a
collision is observed in a slot.