Bandwidth Differentiation and Throughput Maximization in IEEE 802.11e WLAN

While throughput maximization and service differentiation are two critical issues in wireless local area networks (WLANs), both are separately investigated in most existing work. This paper, from a different angle, addresses how to maximize saturation throughput of a WLAN conditioned that bandwidth differentiation is supported too. A novel model is established for this problem assuming IEEE 802.11e is used. We calculate the optimal values of minimum contention window for stations to maximize the saturation throughput and provide differentiated service as well. The simulation results validate our new model.