PCF vs DCF: a performance comparison

Wireless LANs are gaining importance at a very rapid pace. The idea of being mobile and connected to the Internet is driving new innovations in this area. With the recent innovations in the field of multimedia networks, the requirements of QoS support over wireless LANs are becoming more stringent. Quality of service in a wireless LAN is affected by a number of parameters like channel access method, physical/environmental conditions, number of nodes, distance etc. A proper selection of protocols/topology helps in maintaining/improving the QoS support of a wireless network. In this paper, the authors analyze the effect of channel access methods on the multimedia (voice) traffic. Two channel access methods, namely point coordinate function (PCF) and distributed coordinated function are considered for their support for QoS. The simulation results indicate that using PCF for multimedia traffic results in better performance.