Binary Exponential Backoff Is Stable for High Arrival Rates

Goodman, Greenberg, Madras and March gave a lower bound of n-Ω(log n) for the maximum arrival rate for which the n-user binary exponential backoff protocol is stable. Thus, they showed that the protocol is stable as long as the arrival rate is at most n-Ω(log n). We improve the lower bound, showing that the protocol is stable for arrival rates up to O(n-.9).