Experimental evaluation of IEEE 802.11e

Abstract

One of Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN) main drawbacks, when compared to wired networks, is that WLAN are less predictable and efficient. Wireless physical medium is harder to be controlled than physical wire. WLAN medium is also unlicensed, and thus susceptible to interferences produced by other devices. Therefore, great effort is being done in order to obtain Quality of Service (QoS) in realtime voice communications using WLANs. This topic has opened plenty of new research lines to upgrade current WLAN standards. In this paper, we study the behavior of new Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols defined in IEEE 802.1 le draft standard, designed to support QoS when providing voice communication services between Mobile Stations (MS) in WLANs. We present experimental results obtained from simulations, and compare our results with simulations made using IEEE 802.11 standard MAC. Our simulation work was done using ns-2 simulator, with the addition of specific modules for 802.1 le.