The Impact of DCF and PCF Protocols in Mobile Wlans

Abstract

This paper presents a new analytical model to compute the performance of the IEEE802.11 standards. The model is simple, but nevertheless exceedingly accurate, which can be used to compute the throughput and delay for all access mechanisms supported by the IEEE802.11 standard. These mechanisms include the distributed coordination function (DCF), the DCF with RTS/CTS, and the point coordination function (PCF). Using the new model, we provide an extensive throughput and delay performance evaluation of the above mentioned access mechanisms, in the assumption of noisy channel and finite number of terminals. In addition, the evaluation study took into account the impact of the presence of “hidden stations” and the possibility of “capture” on the performance of wireless networks.

Key Words:

• Performance
• WLAN
• 802.11
• analytical
• model
• DCF
• RTS/CTS
• PCF

Additional information

Notes on contributors

M. AL-Rousan

Mohammad AL-Rousan received his MS in Electrical Engineering from University of Missouri-Columbia, MI, USA in 1992, and his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Brigham Young University, UT, USA in 1996. From 1994–1995 he worked for IBM, Provo, UT, USA. He is an Associate Professor of Computer Engineering, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Jordan. His search interest includes wireless networking, System protocols, intelligent systems, computer applications, and Internet computing.

O. Abu-Rahmeh

Osama Abu-Rahmeh received his MS in Electrical Engineering from Jordan University of Science and Technology, Jordan, 1999. His search interest includes wireless networking and System protocols.