Quantification of the Effect of Security on Performance in Wireless LANs

Abstract

This paper investigates and quantifies the effect of different security protocols on the performance of a wireless LAN. Experiments were performed on a wireless test-bed and the data obtained was analyzed for throughput, delay and packet loss under different security scenarios. Both TCP and UDP traffic streams were analyzed at three different data rates. The effect of congestion is also quantified. The results reveal that no significant degradation in performance occurs by enabling security protocols in a wireless LAN.