Multi-cell Performance of IEEE 802.11a Wireless LANs

Wireless data networks is a growing business and the demand for higher capacity is increasing rapidly. There exist a number of standards for wireless LANs (WLANs) and the most popular one is the IEEE 802.11 family. This thesis investigates the capacity of IEEE 802.11a for a multi-cell environment. The use of many access points (APs) results in a need to reuse the available channels, IEEE 802.11a has 12. A higher reuse factor corresponds to less channels in each AP but larger co-channel distances, hence less interference. There exists an “optimal” cell radius for each reuse, where the capacity per cell and channel is maximized. The total capacity per area unit can be increased by adding more APs, at the cost of decreased utilization of each AP. When two co-channel cells get close enough, they time-share the medium instead of using it separately.Validerat; 20101217 (root