Delay upper bounds for a finite user random-access system with bursty arrivals

In this paper we study the effect of burstiness of packet arrivals on the performance of a buffered finite user random-access system. Primarily, we formulate and analyze a protocol that exploits the burstiness of arrivals and the presence of buffers. In addition, it is shown that the boundary of the region in which infinite user models best approximate a finite user system is dependent on the burstiness of the arrival process. We also show that an accurate comparison between TDMA and random-access schemes depends crucially on the number of users in the system.