An overview of WLAN performance, some important case-scenarios and their associated models

Abstract

The study of the 802.11 standard has been very intense for more than a decade now. Several works have striven at understanding its performance, even in the simplest topology of a wireless local area network (WLAN) with a single access point. The present survey is an effort to classify and present the enormous literature on the subject into several important case-scenarios, and summarizes the current understanding of WLAN performance. The resulting performance and associated models are discussed (and sometimes extended) and simulation results are used to illustrate them. We also highlight interesting open research problems that we believe the community should address.