Towards Optimal Multimedia Packet Bursting for IEEE 802.11 Wireless LANs

The imminent IEEE 802.11n standard is poised to provide unprecedented throughput experienced at the MAC layer, whilst providing QoS support for the escalating demand in multimedia services and applications. Along with the 802.1 le QoS amendment, 802.11n defines advanced ARQ policies designed to increase the channel utilization efficiency by reducing MAC protocol overhead. Although these techniques provide vast improvements over the legacy 802.11 protocol, opportunities exist within this framework to optimize performance based on the type of traffic being serviced. In this paper we investigate the performance optimization of the 802.11 Block Ack ARQ policy, and propose an adaptive block size algorithm for throughput improvement. Using a comprehensive OPNET simulation model we show that the proposed adaptive algorithm achieves higher link layer throughput and improved QoS.