1 DQSA - Treating the Network as a Distributed Switch

The IEEE 802.14 Working Group is charged with defining a standard for the Cable TV environment, the eighth IEEE 802 standard to address what is effectively the same problem. This paper presents a set of criteria, derived from the performance of typical packet/cell switch, for the ideal MAC. It is suggested that the plethora of standards is because the first, IEEE 802.3, did not satisfy the ideal criteria. The DQSA (distributed queue switch architecture) family of MACs: DQLAN, DQRAP, and XDQRAP satisfy this ideal criteria and provide performance over a distributed area that approaches that of a typical localized packet/cell switch. The paper suggests that IEEE 802.14 incorporate the DQSA family in its standard thus providing a single standard that, aside from addressing the cable TV environment, could satisfy the market demands presently met by the existing seven standards.