Controlled Access

Controlled Access

In controlled access, the stations consult one another to find which station has the right to send. A station cannot send unless it has been authorized by other stations. We discuss three popular controlled-access methods.

1. Reservation

In the reservation method, a station needs to make a reservation before sending data. Time is divided into intervals. In each interval, a reservation frame precedes the data frames sent in that interval.

If there are N stations in the system, there are exactly N reservation minislots in the reservation frame. Each minislot belongs to a station. When a station needs to send a data frame, it makes a reservation in its own minislot. The stations that have made reservations can send their data frames after the reservation frame.

In the first interval, only stations 1, 3, and 4 have made reservations. In the second interval, only station 1 has made a reservation.

2. Polling

Polling works with topologies in which one device is designated as a primary station and the other devices are secondary stations. All data exchanges must be made through the primary device even when the ultimate destination is a secondary device. The primary device controls the link; the secondary devices follow its instructions. It is up to the primary device to determine which device is allowed to use the channel at a given time. The primary device, therefore, is always the initiator of a session.

3. Token Passing

In the token-passing method, the stations in a network are organized in a logical ring. In other words, for each station, there is a predecessor and a successor. The predecessor is the station which is logically before the station in the ring; the successor is the station which is after the station in the ring. The current station is the one that is accessing the channel now. The right to this access has been passed from the predecessor to the current station. The right will be passed to the successor when the current station has no more data to send.