Characteristics, Results and Findings of IEEE 802.11 in an RF Isolated Testbed

Simulation has been one of the most important methods for evaluating the characteristics of network protocols and applications before deployment in wireless communication networks. This paper presents the findings of a controlled and automated experimental IEEE 802.11 testbed and compares them to results of popular network simulators. The comparison shows the differences and similarities of three network simulators with the testbed using identical test scenarios. The comparison has shown that some simulators can produce misleading results under certain conditions. The discrepancy can be caused by simulators using simple and invalid models. Without realistic modelling in simulations, the evaluation of performance of mobile networks may not correlate well with performance in reality.