A frequent observation in service systems with queues in parallel is that customers in other queues tend to be served faster than those in one’s own queue. This paper quantifies the probability that one’s service would have started earlier if one had joined another queue than the queue that...

Medium Access Control protocols for high speed LAN/MANs often employ a timer-controlled token passing mechanism to control station access to the shared media. These protocols support time-critical (real-time) applications, and provide priority among non time-critical applications. This paper...