Method and apparatus for prioritizing traffic in half-duplex networks

摘要

Collision delay intervals are modified in Ethernet network devices transmitting priority data requiring a guaranteed latency by multiplying an integer multiple number of slot times with a fractional coefficient. A network device having priority data for transmission uses the conventional Truncated Binary Exponential Backoff (TBEB) algorithm during the first access attempt to calculate a collision delay interval from a randomly selected integer multiple of slot times. If the network device encounters another collision, the next randomly selected integer multiple of slot times is multiplied by the fractional coefficient. Use of the fractional coefficient during collision mediation on a half-duplex Ethernet network provides a bounded access latency for real-time and multimedia applications by granting the network device a higher probability of successfully accessing the network media.