FairIN: Throughput Fairness in Infrastructure-Based Wireless Access Networks

Abstract

Inter-Basic Service Sets (BSSes) interference and interference inside a BSS are unavoidable since the quantity of non-overlapping channels for wireless networks is limited; and multiple BSSes form an Extended Service Set (ESS). Nowadays, due to the rapid growth in the use of wireless devices like smart phones, laptop etc., access points (APs) in public areas are overheaded with a huge number of Internet accesses requested by users. When many wireless devices are assembled together to get and offer services, allocation and sharing of wireless channels become a critical issue since all wireless devices want to access the channel simultaneously and transmit data. Therefore, collisions occur in acquiring the channel and consequently, unfairness in channel access increases, which leads to the degradation of throughput fairness in wireless networks. This paper addresses aforesaid issue to propose a mechanism, called FairIN, to provide fairness in throughput such that all wireless stations can get an equal access of the channel. In FairIN, we design two mechanisms to handle the fairness inside a BSS and among APs separately. The performance analysis of FairIN through simulation in an IEEE 802.11ac network shows that FairIN can improve throughput fairness in infrastructure-based wireless networks.