Binary exponential backoff is stable for high arrival rates

Abstract

Goodman, Greenberg, Madras andMarch 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).