Slotted ALOHA

Slotted ALOHA is a fundamental random access protocol enabling multiple devices to share a wireless channel without centralized coordination. Introduced by Abramson (1970) and refined by Roberts (1975), it divides time into fixed slots and allows devices to transmit at the beginning of a slot with a fixed probability. While simple and elegant, Slotted ALOHA achieves only 37% channel utilization under saturation (optimal traffic load), a fundamental limit discovered by Abramson. Despite this limitation, Slotted ALOHA remains a teaching tool and appears in modern systems like satellite and IoT networks.