Time division is better than frequency division for periodic Internet broadcast of dynamic data

Abstract

We consider two ways to send items over a broadcast channel and compare them using the metric of expected waiting time. The first is frequency division, where each item is broadcast on its own subchannel of lower bandwidth. We find the optimal allocation of bandwidth to the subchannels for this method. Then we look at time division, where items are sent sequentially on a single full-bandwidth channel. We show that for any frequency division broadcast schedule, we can find a better time division schedule. Thus time division is better than frequency division.