802.16 MCF for 802.11a based mesh networks: A case for standards re-use

Abstract—802.16 and 802.11a have similar physical layer characteristics, however their medium access control is quite different. We present a method to implement 802.16 medium access control with its mesh coordination function (MCF) over existing 802.11a hardware. Our method can be implemented in software, allowing the already deployed 802.11 based mesh nodes to take advantage of the 802.16 MCF, hence increasing the operational lifetime of already installed hardware. The method works by embedding each 802.16 packet into an 802.11 broadcast packet with some padding, so that the resulting packets can be scheduled with Time Division Multiple Access scheduling. We also show that even after embedding and padding the bandwidth of the resulting system is comparable to the bandwidth that can be achieved with 802.16 hardware. Our method is presented as an interim solution for the upcoming 802.11s standard, as there is currently no hardware working with that standard. Index Terms—Mesh networks, MAC protocol implementation I