Integrated multiple access protocols for personal/mobile communication networks supporting multimedia applications

The success of personal communication networks will depend on their ability to accommodate the diverse traffic which will be generated from the numerous and diverse future multimedia applications and services. Towards this end, multimedia Medium access control (MAC) algorithms capable of accommodating this integrated traffic will play a major role. In this thesis, novel MAC protocols are proposed and their ability to efficiently utilize the available bandwidth is evaluated.;The proposed multimedia MAC protocols are based on random access algorithms and reservation policies using TDM and CDMA technologies. The MAC protocols also support multiple-priority mechanisms: an essential feature in communication systems supporting integrated services with diverse Quality of Service (QoS) requirements. One of the major characteristics of the priority mechanism is its simplicity of implementation. This adds to the practical value of the proposed MAC protocols. The TDMA and the CDMA versions of the protocols are evaluated for voice and data traffic and compared to other MACs proposed in the literature. The CDMA version of the protocol is also investigated for data, voice and video with multi-slot reservation for video. Network configurations servicing CBR (variable quality) and VBR (constant quality) video users are evaluated. The results verified the superiority of the proposed protocol: high school utilization and ability to service effectively high volumes of integrated traffic. The new MACs are found to be stable, robust and easy to implement multimedia services in personal communication networks. The simplicity and high performance level of the proposed MACs makes it valuable for supporting integrated traffic wireless applications.