Experimental investigation of IEEE 802.11e EDCA

We investigate the performance of IEEE 802.11e enhanced distributed channel access (EDCA) using real world hardware in a realistic indoor working environment. TCP streams of different priorities representing traffic types, such as FTP are tested over a wireless network test-bed. Quality of service (QoS) metrics such as throughput and delay are calculated directly from a passive capture of the channel. We show that EDCA is capable of providing service differentiation. However the QoS guarantee for high priority stations is achieved at the expense of service provided to stations with lower priority.