Improving user-level performance of best effort service for WLAN

Abstract

WLAN is playing a more important role in our daily life because large numbers of WLAN enabled consumer electronic devices are put into use. Performance of WLAN depends largely on the channel throughput and fairness. Under saturated condition, user-level performance mostly reflects the fairness level of service provided by the system. Traditionally, the IEEE 802.11 DCF and other protocols provide packet based fairness service, which is not optimal if the application types vary in system. This work proposes a cross-layer approach to schedule channel based on mission length. By giving a boost on newly arrival missions and suppressing greedy missions temporarily, the proposed scheme achieves better user experience for best effort services. The scheme is designed to be compatible with 802.11e and needs no modification in existing applications. Simulation results show that the average user waiting time is improved compared to the IEEE 802.11 DCF.