Decoupling packet access protocols for wireless networks with capture and errors

Reservation random access (RRA) protocols have been proposed for handling speech and data traffic on packet wireless networks. Among them, collision resolution based RRA protocols decouple the speech access procedure from the data access procedure. It is well known that capture improves the performance of random access algorithms. However, due to the decoupling and the limited delay requirements, capture could have negative effects on the performance. It has been shown that reservation protocols do not operate correctly in the presence of co-channel interference. Centralised management techniques, based on retransmissions, represent a suitable method for handling channel errors in microcellular radio networks, characterised by a negligible propagation delay. We present analytical results of performance evaluations for decoupling RRA protocols in a wireless network with capture and errors. The model we use allows one to evaluate the performance of RRA protocols with re-transmissions.