The random-access channel for communication between users and the Menehune was designed specifically for the traffic characteristics of interactive computing. In a conventional communication system a user might be assigned a portion of the channel on either a frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) or time-division multiple access (TDMA) basis. Since it was well known that in time-sharing systems 1970, computer and user data are bursty, such fixed assignments are generally wasteful of bandwidth because of the high peak-to-average data rates that characterize the traffic.