An improved IEEE 802.11 DCF protocol based on TCP/UDP hybrid stream

Abstract

As a conventional MAC control protocol for wireless networks, IEEE 802.11 DCF hasn't taken account into the requirement, which TCP/UDP hybrid stream access needs for MAC frame length. The TCP/UDP hybrid stream's transmission delay would increase significantly, that always generate failure of TCP stream transmitting. This paper proposes an improved IEEE 802.11 DCF protocol and theory model based on TCP/UDP hybrid streams. The improved protocol mentioned differentiates length between TCP package and UDP package, and adaptively adjusts MAC frame length, which avoids lost packages retransmission and delay from TCP/UDP hybrid stream. The simulation we made to verify that prior estimate for TCP/UDP packages quantities in sole channel can promote throughput of network more than 10% with transmission delay elimination.