Why multiplexing
Carriage of traffic between one node and many
- Client/server applications
- Heterogeneity of traffic
Cost of plant
- One “wide” wire may be cheaper to install and maintain than many “narrow” ones
- One connection at one end
- Tradeoff between additional costs (wide wires and muxes) and savings
Homogeneity of bandwidth in aggregated traffic
- Combining several bursty but uncorrelated links
- The “sum” is greater than the “whole”