1 An Improved Capacity Modeling Approach for 802.11 Protocols

Abstract—Despite the widespread use of IEEE 802.11 Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) protocol, not much analysis has been done on modeling its performance, to determine what amount of users such a network can accommodate. This paper introduces one approach to such a model, assisting with capacity determination of WLAN networks. We introduce a model to estimate the number of users that such a WLAN can accommodate. The model applies to unsaturated traffic conditions and to all traffic arrival patterns. Further, the model tries to emulate such a network as accurately as possible with moderate simplifications. The model provides an improved method of practical WLAN performance estimation. Index Terms—Unsaturated sources, 802.11 Markov Model, 802.11 throughput analysis. I