@article{aldous1987uie,
title={{Ultimate instability of exponential back-off protocol for acknowledgment-based transmission control of random access communication channels}},
author={Aldous, David},
journal={Information Theory, IEEE Transactions on},
volume={Bogus.},
number={4},
pages={219--223},
year=1987,
note={This is in fact a rather funny read since ethernet works well in practice. The {\em pre} reference is the right one, however.}
}