On the stability of flow-aware CSMA

Thomas Bonald (1, 2) , Mathieu Feuillet (3)

1 LTCI - Laboratoire Traitement et Communication de l'Information
2 LINCS - Laboratory of Information, Network and Communication Sciences
3 RAP - Networks, Algorithms and Probabilities

We consider a wireless network where each flow (instead of each link) runs its own CSMA (Carrier Sense Multiple Access) algorithm. Specifically , each flow attempts to access the radio channel after some random time and transmits a packet if the channel is sensed idle. We prove that, unlike the standard CSMA algorithm, this simple distributed access scheme is optimal in the sense that the network is stable for all traffic intensities in the capacity region of the network.

Mots clés: Wireless network; conflict graph; CSMA; flow-level dynamics; stability; throughput performance

Domaines: Réseaux et télécommunications [cs.NI]; Performance et fiabilité [cs.PF]

Thomas Bonald, Mathieu Feuillet. On the stability of flow-aware CSMA. Performance Evaluation, 2010, ⟨10.1016/j.peva.2010.08.001⟩. ⟨hal-01244058⟩