On the throughput of an ALOHA channel with variable length packets

Analysis is presented for an infinite population ALOHA channel under the steady-state assumption, with emphasis on the unslotted channel case. It is shown that the probability of successful transmission in this case depends upon the channel packet length density only through its mean value. This result is used to obtain a simple expression for the steady-state throughput and to restate other known results in a more precise way.