backoff

networking A host which has experienced a collision on a

network waits for a amount of time before attempting to

retransmit. A random backoff minimises the probability that

the same nodes will collide again, even if they are using the

same backoff algorithm. Increasing the backoff period after

each collision also helps to prevent repeated collisions,

especially when the network is heavily loaded.

An example algorithm is binary exponential backoff.

(1996-05-28)