On the Performance of the IEEE 802.11 in a Multi-Channel Environment

Wireless networking enhanced with multiple transmitting channels has been considered to improve the utilization of the electromagnetic spectrum and to provide ways to accommodation the growing demand for connectivity. In this scenario, the use of a common control channel to coordinate the stations and networking resources is usually employed. This work evaluates the control channel capacity and its impact on the overall system throughput when multiple channels are available. The CSMA/CA mechanism is considered as it is the most used access control mechanism in the wireless local area network. To this end, an analytical model is proposed to evaluate the saturation conditions of the control channel. Empirical results are also provided and compared with the analytical model. The results show that the empirical results are consistent with the analytical model. In particular, it is shown that the ratio of eight data channels per control channel attains the best results.