Performance analysis of line scheduling methods for multilink procedures

A data link with multiple lines can be implemented by using the standard protocol of a multilink procedure. The multilink procedure achieves performance flexibility and reliability improvement. This paper proposes line scheduling methods at a sending station, which is an important factor for implementing multilink procedures, and evaluates their performance. A line scheduling for a multilink procedure selects a line to which a multilink frame, which is the transfer data unit, is assigned. The speed of the lines may be equal or different. The following methods are studied: (1) rotational scheduling, (2) stochastic scheduling and (3) adaptive scheduling. The adaptive scheduling method is shown to have the best performance. For easy implementation it is shown that the rotational scheduling method can be applied to lines with equal speeds and that the stochastic scheduling method can be applied to the lines with equal or different speeds.