Abstract:
The current family of 802.11 protocols are based on the Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA) mechanism which is a simple and robust means of sharing a channel. However, t...Show MoreMetadata
Abstract:
The current family of 802.11 protocols are based on the Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA) mechanism which is a simple and robust means of sharing a channel. However, two current trends in wireless networks point towards a situation where CSMA fails to perform better than pure random access solutions such as ALOHA. The first trend is the ever increasing raw data rate in each generation of 802.11 which is set to continue with the current 802.11ax standardisation. The second is the move towards smaller frames as end users increasingly use mobile devices instead of desktop computers. We show that as the ratio of propagation delay to packet transmission time increases, the performance of CSMA degrades correspondingly, to the point where ALOHA outperforms CSMA.
Published in: 2014 IFIP Wireless Days (WD)
Date of Conference: 12-14 November 2014
Date Added to IEEE Xplore: 26 January 2015
Electronic ISBN:978-1-4799-6606-6
Print ISSN: 2156-9711