IEEE 802.11 goodput analysis for mixed real-time and data traffic for home networks

Abstract

Increasingly, wireless networks are being used to provide connection services for devices running applications with very different quality of service requirements. Although this issue has been addressed by the IEEE 802.11e standard, the fact is that most networks deployed in home/office environments nowadays use IEEE 802.11a/b/g standard devices. Unfortunately, administrators often do not set configuration parameters of network devices to maximize resources performance, thus providing poor quality of service. In this paper, two IEEE 802.11a/b/g analytical performance evaluation models for mixed traffic Ad Hoc and infrastructure WLANs are presented, assuming that some network devices are executing single applications, like VoIP, videoIP or network browsing. In our analysis, network devices are grouped according to the expected traffic pattern of the applications they are running. Then, global and individual group goodput are calculated assuming a congested network. Based upon the outcome of this analysis for different settings of the device configuration parameters, it is shown that the performance of a standard home/office IEEE 802.11 wireless network can be significantly improved by choosing appropriate values of these parameters.