In a statistical multiplexer, packets are assumed to be arriving at the multiplexer with the inter arrival times being Independent and Identically Distributed (IID). The service time is also IID. The inter arrival times are generated from the corresponding probability distribution. When a packet arrives to an empty or idle system, the packet is immediately served; otherwise, it is queued. In this paper, the queue behaviors in the multiplexer’s buffer were examined. The results show that the average number of packets in the multiplexer queue increases in an exponential form with increase in utilization; and at high utilization, there is a dramatic increase in the number of packets in the multiplexer queue which may lead to packet loss when there is no sufficient buffering. Comparison of the simulation and analytical results for the mean number of packets in an M/M/1 Multiplexer Queue reveals that results are within ±23% for offered load of up to 90%.

The process of combining two or more communication paths into one is referred to as multiplexing (Regis and Donald, 2000; Stallings, 2004; and Ajiboye and Adediran, 2010). In multiplexing, system resources are shared among multiple users. Multiplexing is an acronym used in networking and it refers to sending two or more signals or streams of information on a transmission medium or carrier simultaneously. Multiplexer’s behavior is similar to those of concentrators and contention devices. These devices enable multiple relatively low speed terminal devices to share a single high capacity circuit between two points in a network. The advantage of multiplexers is that they enable carriers and end-users to take advantage of the economies of scale (Horak, 2007). Conversely, demultiplexing is the reverse of multiplexing and refers to the phenomenon of separation of the multiplexed signals (Held, 2001).

The synchronous time division multiplexing is grossly inefficient in terms of channel utilization (Stallings, 2004; and Ajiboye and Adediran, 2010). This is because most of the time slots in a frame are unused and are therefore wasted. According to Stalling (2004), in a situation where computer terminals are linked together using a shared computer port, even when all the terminals are working, in most cases, there is no data transfer at any particular terminal. Therefore, it means that the network will be on idle mode when there is no data transfer at any time instance.

Information Technology Journal, STDM, TDM, DSL, VoD, QoS, Queuing system, Multiplexing, Demultiplexing, Buffer.