This book deals with one aspect of the performance of a form of communications network known as a packet broadcast network. In a packet broadcast network, data are transmitted in the form of packets, and a transmission from any one station is heard by some or all of the other stations on the network. Examples of packet broadcast networks include satellite networks, packet radio networks, and local area networks. In all these cases, the transmission medium is shared such that an attempt by more than one station to transmit at a time will result in a collision. To regulate transmission, a distributed medium access control protocol is used. This book examines various such protocols and assesses their relative efficiency.

The technique that is used in this book, known as equilibrium point analysis, is an attractive one. It produces closed form, analytic solutions. Also, the technique is simple enough that the book can be understood with only familiarity with basic probability and queueing theory.

The book begins with a clear exposition of the performance issues for multiple access protocols and of equilibrium point analysis. The bulk of the book is devoted to presenting derivations and results for various protocols used in satellite and local area networks. The satellite protocols include the well-known ALOHA and slotted ALOHA protocols, as well as various reservation protocols. For local area networks, CSMA/CD and BRAM are analyzed. The former is well known and used on Ethernet systems; the latter is not, to this reviewer’s knowledge, in use on any commercial system.

The derivations and results are useful and presented in a clear fashion. My complaint with this book is the choice of protocols to analyze. For local networks, the important token bus and token ring protocols are ignored in favor of the unused and practically unknown BRAM. The entire area of packet radio is ignored. The reader not bothered by these omissions will find the book educational and interesting.