FDDI MAC services design considerations

The FDDI MAC (media access control) standard outlines a set of services that are to be made available to other entities, such as logical link control (LLC) and station management (SMT). The number of services and the method by which MAC provides these services using the standard FDDI facilities and operation are not specified, however, and are implementation-dependent. The author addresses some of the considerations that arise when choosing the appropriate set of services for the media access control (MAC) sublayer of an FDDI station, whether one is designing or purchasing these MAC functions.<<ETX>>