Performance evaluation of a multi-level allocation algorithm for VBR traffic over a geostationary satellite.

In this paper we present VnL-TDMA, a new MAC (medium access control) protocol far accessing in TDMA a satellite channel shared among various earth stations which transmit mixed traffic (real-time and non-real time). We concentrate on the analysis of the real-time allocation far variable bit rate (VBR) traffic, and analyse its performance using a synthetically generated VBR traffic modelled on the basis of the statistical parameters of an MPEG-2 coded movie in VBR mode. The peak traffic rate of the movie is almost four times higher than its mean rate, which means that trivial peak rate allocation would waste a lot of the satellite channel bandwidth, while VnL makes unused bandwidth instantaneously available to all earth stations to enable them to transmit best-effort traffic.