Channel Access Unfairness of Wireless LAN Access Methods

Abstract

In this paper, we present an evaluation of chosen wireless LAN access methods involving stations with different bit error rates: n-1 stations in ideal transmission conditions (BER = 0) and 1 station with a given bit error rate (BER ne 0). The simulation results show that the IEEE 802.11 DCF and its modifications (Slow Decrease, AOB) are very sensitive to transmission errors, whereas Idle Sense provides good channel access fairness: the value of the contention window is almost the same regardless of transmission errors, so that the throughput difference between stations subject to different bit error rates corresponds only to the proportion of lost frames.