Performance Analysis of the IEEE 802.11 DCF

This paper presents a Markov chain analysis for studying the performance of the IEEE 802.11 Distributed Coordination Function. The model supports an arbitrary back-off strategy. We found that the most important parameter affecting the performance of binary exponential back-off is the initial back-off window size. Our experimental results show that the probability of collision can be reduced when the initial back-off window size equals the number of stations. Thus, the throughput of the system increases and, at the same time, the delay to transmit the frame is reduced.