Throughput Analysis of IEEE 802.11ac and IEEE 802.11n in a Residential Home Environment

Abstract

IEEE 802.11ac is the latest WiFi standard that operates in 5GHz frequency band and promises high data rate than IEEE 802.11n. In this paper, the authors carry out experiments using commercial off-the-shelf equipment in a typical home environment and quantify the gain provided by IEEE 802.11ac compared to IEEE 802.11n. Their experimental results obtained in a typical home environment show that in 5GHz frequency band with a 2x2 MIMO configuration, IEEE 802.11ac provides much higher throughput than IEEE 802.11n. IEEE 802.11ac provides an average throughput gain of 94% and 91% at a distance of 3.6m and 8.5m from the wireless router, respectively. The authors further investigate the gain in average throughput that is provided by IEEE 802.11ac when the transmit antenna diversity on the wireless router is increased from two to three. They note that IEEE 802.11ac with a 3x2 MIMO configuration helps to combat multipath fading effect present in residential home environment and provides higher average throughput than 2x2 MIMO e.g. at a distance of 11m from the wireless router, 3x2 MIMO configuration provides a gain of 15.13% than the 2x2 MIMO configuration. The authors conclude based on their results (obtained via experiments in a typical home environment) that although IEEE 802.11ac wireless routers are more expensive than IEEE 802.11n wireless routers however, high throughput provided by IEEE 802.11ac justifies the high cost associated with its routers.