Experimental evaluation of IEEE 802.11ad millimeter-wave WLAN devices

Wireless local area network (WLAN) using millimeter wave (mmWave) communications is one of enabler of next generation wireless access networks since huge bandwidth is available in mmWave bands and it enables beyond Gbit/s communications. This paper experimentally evaluate the PHY rate and the throughput performance of off the shelf mmWave WLAN devices that are compatible with IEEE 802.11ad standard. Our experimental evaluation shows that the association can be established until the distance between an access point (AP) and a station (STA) is 27 m and even if a STA is located at opposite side of an AP, the association still be established until the distance is smaller than 5 m. Our interference evaluation reveals an unfairness of throughput between two pairs of the AP and the STA.