Broadcasting in ad hoc multiple access channels

We study dynamic broadcasting in multiple access channels in adversarial settings. There is an unbounded supply of anonymous stations attached to the channel. There is an adversary who injects packets into stations to be broadcast on the channel. The adversary is restricted by the injection rate, burstiness, and by how many passive stations can be simultaneously activated by injecting packets into their empty queues. We consider deterministic distributed broadcast algorithms, which are further categorized by their properties. We investigate for which injection rates can algorithms attain bounded packet latency, when adversaries are restricted to be able to activate at most one station per round. The rates of algorithms we present make the increasing sequence 1/3, 3/8 and 1/2 reflecting the additional features of algorithms. We show that no injection rate greater than 3/4 can be handled with bounded packet latency.