Channel Partitioning MAC protocols: TDMA
TDMA: time division multiple access
access to channel in "rounds"
each station gets fixed length slot (length = pkt trans time) in each round
example: 6-station LAN, 1,3,4 have pkt, slots 2,5,6 idle
TDM (Time Division Multiplexing): channel divided into N time slots, one per user; inefficient with low duty cycle users and at light load.
FDM (Frequency Division Multiplexing): frequency subdivided.