Analysis of a Demand Assignment TDMA Blocking System

This paper presents an analysis of a multichannel Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) blocking system. Such a system is of interest for real‐time voice‐traffic applications. The effects of different traffic‐assignment algorithms, traffic loads, number of channels, number of time slots, and number of traffic nodes on system performance are studied, where performance is measured by the probability that an incoming message will be blocked. An approximate analytical solution is found, the results of which compare exceedingly well with results obtained from computer simulation. Also derived is a rigorous lower bound on the blocking probability. Collectively, these results indicate that, for most systems of interest, blocking probability is insensitive to the assignment algorithm used. The performance of an assignment algorithm that is simplest to implement is therefore nearly optimal.