How to improve the performance of asynchronous transfer mode multiplexers

We consider an ATM multiplexer with a finite or infinite buffer and stochastic output rate. There are independent, identical sources connected to this multiplexer which transmit fluid directly into the buffer. We show that the through-put of the multiplexer is increasing in the number of sources connected, where we scale the cell stream process in such a way that the mean and peak input rate stays unchanged. In the infinite buffer case, the cell loss is decreasing in the number of sources connected. Hence more links improve the performance of ATM multiplexers. In the last part, we prove that correlations within cell stream processes have a negative effect on the performance of ATM multiplexers. These investigations provide easily computable lower bounds to performance measures.