Experimental Analysis of TCP and UDP Traffic Performance overInfra-structured 802.11b WLANs

摘要

In this paper we present the results of experimentscarried out in an infra-structured 802.11b WLANcomprising a single Access Point (AP) and a number ofuser terminals. The aim of this work is twofold: by the onehand, we validate well-known "TCP (UDP) over 802.11"analytic models by means of experimental results; by theother hand, we focus our analysis on TCP behavior over802.11b. We present results about flow fairness, aboutinteraction between WLAN link layer parameters (ARQ)and transport protocols and about TCP flows traffic characteristics.With respect to earlier related works, an addedvalue of our analysis is given by a more accurate knowledgeand control of key parameters that highly affect thesystem performance (e.g., mobile station transmission bitrate,maximum number of retransmission attempts, TCPversion, etc.) that guarantees the reliability of numericalresults. This is a key issue in order to confidently explainobserved experimental phenomena.