Information Theory and Communication Networks: An Unconsummated Union

Information theory has not yet had a direct impact on networking, although there are similarities in concepts and methodologies that have consistently attracted the attention of researchers from both fields. In this paper, we review several topics that are related to communication networks and that have an information theoretic flavor, including multiaccess protocols, timing channels, effective bandwidth of bursty data sources, deterministic constraints on datastreams, queueing theory, and switching networks. Keywords--- Communication networks, multiaccess, effective bandwidth, switching I. INTRODUCTION Information theory is the conscience of the theory of communication; it has defined the "playing field" within which communication systems can be studied and understood. It has provided the spawning grounds for the fields of coding, compression, encryption, detection, and modulation and it has enabled the design and evaluation of systems whose performance is pushing the limits of wha..