Point-to-Point and Multidrop Links

We will be concerned here with efficiencies of point-to-point and multidrop links. Directly or indirectly, these efficiencies translate to dollars. For instance, a point-to-point link often takes the form of a leased high-quality telephone line, which may be very expensive. In the case of a multidrop link, the line may be owned rather than leased, but if its efficiency is too small, its users will complain, and additional lines will need to be installed. Thus it is of high importance to have some idea of the size of the link’s utilization u, which is the proportion of time a transmitter on the link is successfully sending data.