Effects of link rate assignment on the max-min fair throughput of wireless mesh networks

Wireless mesh networks (WMNs) support a variety of modulation and coding schemes (MCSs) and hence enable adaptive modulation and coding. On the one hand, adaptive modulation and coding significantly increases the overall system capacity, as it allows to maximize the throughput on each link in dependence of the channel conditions. On the other hand, there is a trade-off between link data rate and spatial reuse, as high data rate links are less robust against interference. For maximizing the wireless mesh network performance, an intelligent link rate assignment strategy is thus required. By evaluating the max-min fair WMN throughput under different link rate assignment strategies, we are able to show that using more robust MCSs improve the overall WMN throughput and point out directions towards an optimized MCS choice.