Fine grained channel access in wireless lan

Modern communication technologies are steadily advancing the physical layer (PHY) data rate in wireless LANs, from hundreds of Mbps in current 802.11n to over Gbps in the near future. As PHY data rates increase, however, the overhead of media access control (MAC) progressively degrades data throughput efficiency. This trend reflects a fundamental aspect of the current MAC proto-col, which allocates the channel as a single resource at a time. This paper argues that, in a high data rate WLAN, the channel should be divided into separate subchannels whose width is com-mensurate with PHY data rate and typical frame size. Multiple stations can then contend for and use subchannels simultaneously according to their traffic demands, thereby increasing overall effi-ciency. We introduce FICA, a fine-grained channel access method that embodies this approach to media access using two novel tech